The mystery, of Christ living in you?

 Colossians 2:1-3

Do you enjoy a good mystery?  I’ve never understood why someone would want to read the last chapter of a mystery book so they would know how it’s going to come out before reading the book.  It is like my Texas Aggie friends watching a replay and expecting the score to change.  Now you know the devil made me write that.  Ok, so I had a choice and just wanted to be funny, I hope you Aggies forgive me. 

Did you know the Bible has many mysteries and the Apostle Paul is addressing the most important one?  You and I who are Gentiles, that means we are not Jewish by birth, have a problem.  Bill Gilliam would often teach this truth – “Birth always determines identity.  All you have to do to go to hell is show up on the planet as a descendant of Adam.”  It is important to make clear that both Jew and Gentiles have this problem, for Adam was the source or beginning of mankind, he is the great many times over, granddad of all who have lived on planet earth. 

Now a man showed up on planet earth named Abram, later to have his name changed to Abraham, and he found favor with both God and man, and he had a son named Isaac who also had a son named, Jacob.  This was the covenant God made with Abram.  “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great so that you will exemplify divine blessing.  I will bless those who bless those who bless you but the one who treats you lightly I must curse.” (Genesis 12:2-3)  The most important legacy was that by the Abrahamic Covenant; the God of Abraham became Isaac’s God as well and also Jacob’s.  But Jacob had a wrestling match one night with the angel of the Lord, and that brought about a new name for him, he would be referred to as Israel, and his descendants would become the chosen people of God, enjoying the blessing of the covenant made with Abraham. 

So how does this tie into the mystery of Christ living in you?  What a fantastic question, let’s explore in the book of Romans by the apostle Paul, we read about the Gentiles being grafted in.  You will find that in Romans 11:10-12, “Let their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent continually.  I ask, then, have they stumbled in order to fall? Absolutely not! On the contrary, by their stumbling, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel jealous. Now if their stumbling brings riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full number bring!”

You will find this truth in Galatians 3:28-29, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.”  WOW, did you get that we Gentiles who are in Christ are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise?  Now there is a problem you may not feel like an heir.  1 Peter 2:9-10, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”  Nowhere did it say you would feel like a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, but feelings are not the measuring tape, God’s Word is. 

So the answer to the mystery is found in Galatians 1:27, “To them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice