The Dispensational Teaching asserts that all the promises that you find in the Old Testament were made to the Jews and apply only to the Jews; that is to say, they do not apply to the Church; it is asserted that the Christian Church is something which has “come in” as a kind of “parenthesis.” Dispensationalists maintain that when the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world, He came to offer the Kingdom of heaven to the Jews, and it was only because the Jews refused it that the idea of the Church was introduced. If only the Jews had accepted the Kingdom, they say, there would never have been a Christian Church at all. But, the Jews, having rejected the Kingdom, the Church has come in as a new dispensation, as a kind of parenthesis.
The Church will come to an end, and then once more there will be a restoration of the Jews as a nation and Christ will set up His Kingdom among them. They draw a sharp line of division between “the Church” and “the Kingdom.” They say that the Jews are still a separate and a special people, and that all of these Old Testament prophecies only apply to them. The relevance of this to our position today is that those who believe the Dispensationalists’ teaching are very busy preaching sermons and delivering addresses about Egypt and about what’s happening in Palestine and in the Near East.
Some even claim that they can foretell exactly what is going to happen, and when. They find it all, they say, in the Scriptures. For this reason, they make great use of the particular statement we are examining. They emphasize that the Apostle says, “how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men”, and there they stop. Then they proceed to argue that these words make it perfectly clear that the “mystery” pertaining to the Church was not known under the old dispensation; indeed, until it was revealed to the Apostle Paul, indeed, even venture to say that the Old Testament nowhere teaches that the Gentiles would be saved.
There is only one answer to give to such teaching. If its exponents would read the Old Testament without prejudice, they would find many references to the matter in dispute between us. The promise was made to Abraham, as Paul reminds us in the third chapter of Galatians: “In thee shall all nations be blessed” (3:8). In Isaiah there are references to the “isles” and the “Gentiles” and so on. This is the simple answer. But there are other answers and these are most important by way of reply to those who say that the Church as such was not known under the old dispensation.
Here is a quotation from the Notes of a well-known ‘Bible’ (Scofield): “The Church corporately is not in the vision of the Old Testament prophets,” and then, in brackets to prove that contention, “(Ephesians 3:1-6).” Ephesians 3:1-6, according to that statement, indicates that the Church corporately is not in the vision of the Old Testament prophet. That quotation is found in the introduction to the prophetic books of the Old Testament in those particular.
Notes: I perhaps might add, in order to make my statement complete, that there is a system of Ultra-Dispensationalism associated with the name of Dr. Bullinger which goes so far that it is only in the Epistles that we really have the New Testament Gospel which applies to us. Dr. Bullinger taught that the gospels have nothing to do with us, that they were for the Jews only; it is here in Ephesians chapter 3 that we have the message for this age for Jews and Gentiles in the Church.
What is the answer to this teaching?
Surely the doctrine concerning the Church was clearly taught by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Himself. Consider what transpired at Caesarea Philippi when the Lord said to Peter, “Upon this rock I will build My Church.” The famous ‘Scofield Study Bible Notes’ have to admit that He did so speak, but they say that He did not elaborate it. But the fact is that He did say it: so that this truth concerning the Church is not only revealed to Paul, it had been revealed before. Our Lord Himself taught it. Furthermore, Peter preaching on the Day of Pentecost said, “Repent, and be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall receive the Holy Spirit. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to as many as are afar off.” That clearly is a reference to the Gentiles.
In the same way Peter and John obviously understood this principle when they recognized the Samaritans, who were not Jews, had also received the benefits of salvation, and so laid their hands upon them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. Again, Peter in the dramatic event that took place before he went to the house of Cornelius was brought to see the same truth. It took a vision from heaven to make Peter see it. As a Jew he could not understand this. In spite of the fact that he was a saved man and that he had passed through the experience of Pentecost the idea that the Gentiles should be joint-heirs with Jews, in his view, impossible.
But having seen the vision and witnessed the falling of the Holy Spirit on Cornelius and his household, he saw the truth once and forever, and so admitted the Gentiles into the Church. He was attacked for doing so and defended himself as we are told in chapters 11 and 15 of the Book of Acts. So, it is clear that before Paul had become the apostle to the Gentiles this truth had already been preached. But, in fact, this truth is found in the Old Testament. There are clear passages, such as Ezekiel 36 and elsewhere, which show this picture of the Church.
And as Paul argues in the third chapter of Galatians, in the promise to Abraham it is clearly implicit. How important it is that we should realize the danger of starting with a theory (that John Nelson Darby did) and imposing it upon the Scriptures! What the Apostle actually says is, “Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men” – then comes not a full stop but a comma – “as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.” (Ephesians 3:5) The Apostle is not saying that it had never been revealed before “as,” ‘to the extent that,’ it is now revealed. It was in embryo; it is now in full bloom and development. It was there in shadow as a suggestion; it is now fully revealed. The expression is, “As it is NOW revealed…”
How extraordinary are the subtleties of the human mind, even when it is a Christian, and when it has received the Holy Spirit! It is not a matter of dishonesty. I am but indicating that our human minds are fallible, and that therefore we have to be careful as we study the Scripture lest we elaborate a whole system of teaching upon one text or the misunderstanding of a text. The mystery that has NOW been made plain and clear is not simply the fact that the Gentiles are to be saved, but that the Gentile and the Jew are to be together in the Christian Church — in close relationship one to another.
Paul is not saying that the Gentiles are now to be allowed to become Jewish proselytes. That is what the Jews already believed; indeed, they had practiced proselytism. Many a Gentile had come to see the truth of God in the Old Testament Scriptures, and the Jews instructed him, and circumcised him, and so he became a Jewish proselyte. The Gentile was allowed to come in, but only as a proselyte; he was still not a complete Jew. But the mystery which had been made plain to Paul and the other apostles was that the Gentile had now come in, Not as an addition, Not as a proselyte, but into the new thing, the Church, IN EXACTLY THE SAME WAY as the Jew had come in. He is asserting that THE CHURCH IS NOW THE KINGDOM, that what the Jewish nation was in the Old Testament the Church is now; and that there is no longer that old distinction.
In other words, he is saying that our Lord’s recorded prophecy in Matthew 21:43 has been fulfilled:
“Therefore, say I unto you (the Jews), The Kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.”
The Apostle Peter repeats this in his own way by applying to the Church, consisting of Jew and Gentile, the very words that God used through Moses about the nation of Israel in Exodus 19, “You are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people.” The Church is the present form of the Kingdom. The Apostle’s point is that the old distinction between the Jew and the Gentile is abolished once and forever. He has already shown in the second chapter, stating that “the middle wall of partition” has gone, that Christ has demolished it, and has made “one new man, so making peace”. The old distinction has gone. The particular manner in which the Apostle states it is most interesting. He expresses it by using the word “fellow” three times (Ephesians 3:3-6).
Unfortunately, the Authorized Version misses this and says “fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise.” But Paul ACTUALLY said, “Fellow-Heirs, Fellow-Members of the Body, Fellow-Partakers of the Promise.” The Gentiles, he says, are to be fellow-heirs with the Jews, which means that all the promises God had made to the Jewish people in the Old Testament are Now Open to the Gentiles. The Jew is an Equal sharer with the Gentile, and the Gentile with the Jew. There is no difference. They are both Fellow-Heirs, they have the same place, as it were, in God’s will; they are to receive the same benefits.
This refers to The New Covenant that God had promised. He had said that He was going to make a New Covenant, not like the one that He had made when He brought them out of Egypt. It is, “Your sins and your iniquities I will remember no more,” “I will be to you a God, and you shall be to Me a people.” But this is no longer for the Jews only, but for Gentiles also; it is for you and for me. We are in God’s will, we are heirs together with the Jews, the old nation, the ancient people of God, in this amazing promise of the Benefits of The New Covenant.
The Second Term is “Fellow-Members of the Body.” We might have thought that “Fellow-Heirs” tells us everything, and that nothing can go beyond it. This addition can best be explained perhaps by an illustration. Think of a man who has an only son, but also a family servant who has been with him perhaps for forty years and whom he has come to regard almost as a son. So, when he makes his will he says that all his property is to be divided between his son and his faithful servant. A servant can be made a fellow-heir with a son, but he is still a servant. But it does not make him a member of the family; it does not mean he has the same blood in him; it does not mean that he has changed the essential relationship.
So, the Apostle adds to “Fellow-Heirs” “Fellow-Members of the Body.” This is what demolishes All attempts to perpetuate a distinction between the Jew and the Gentile. It is not, says Paul, that the Gentiles are simply added on somewhat loosely; they are compacted together as joints in the same body, and no one joint is more ‘in the body’ than any other joint. We are joined together, impacted as joints together in this One Body. There is no distinction any longer; there is no superiority and no inferiority.
The System of Dispensationalism maintains that there is, that there is a “heavenly people” and an “earthly people,” and that the Jews will be brought back and be given a very special place again at some Future Time. Such Teaching is A DENIAL of what we are told here, that all that is finished forever, that there is One Body, and that Jews and Gentiles are EQUALLY JOINTS impacted together in the ONE BODY. The Apostle goes even a step further, and says that we are “FELLOW-PARTAKERS Together of The Promise.”
In the light of other Scriptures this means Two Things:
In Galatians 3:14 we read: “That the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” This is also called “the promise of the Father,” and that runs as a golden thread through the Old Testament. It is what happened on the Day of Pentecost which Peter explained thus: “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel.” The promise of the Father shedding forth the Spirit, and all the results that flow from it. You are Fellow-Partakers of the promise, says Paul to the Ephesians, you have received the fullness of the Spirit exactly as the Jew has done. But I believe that the words have a further meaning.
Another great promise was the promise of the resurrection and of the glorious kingdom of the Son of God. Paul states that very clearly in Acts 26, verses 6-8, while making his defense before King Agrippa and Festus. “And now,” he says, “I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God, day and night, hope to come. For which hope’s sake, King Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?”
The promise is that a Messiah would come who would even conquer death and the grave and bring life and immortality to light. It is the promise of the resurrection, the final resurrection, and the coming of the glorious Kingdom, “the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.” That was something which the Jew prized above everything else. He had to suffer much in his life in this world, but he looked beyond it all, as we are told in Hebrews 11 – he looked for the fulfillment of that great promise, the resurrection and the life of glory.
That promise was at first confined to the Jew; the Gentile was without hope, without God in the world, as Paul has already said in chapter 2, verse 12; but now he says that Gentiles are “Fellow-Partakers of God’s Promise in Christ by the Gospel.” To us it means that we can look forward to the resurrection of the body, to a glorified body. We can look forward to dwelling on a new earth under new heavens, wherein dwelleth righteousness; Fellow-Partakers of the Promise, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Those are the two mysteries which the Apostle tells us he has been given to preach; the general mystery, the mystery of Christ, and the particular mystery that God’s Purpose Is Now Manifest and in Operation in The CHURCH; and THAT THE CHURCH IS THE FINAL FORM OF THIS PURPOSE UNTIL IT IS COMPLETED. JEW AND GENTILE TOGETHER, ARE SHARING GOD’S BLESSINGS NOW, AND SHALL SHARE THE BENEFITS OF THE EVERLASTING AND ETERNAL GLORY. They shall wonder and be amazed to all eternity at the grace of God that ever made it possible, that ever brought us in, and that made us and the Jews together FELLOW-HEIRS, FELLOW-MEMBERS of The Body, and FELLOW-PARTAKERS of Such a Blessed HOPE.
“The Two Mysteries” (pages 48-51) An Exposition of Ephesians Chapter 3 by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.