that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are fellow heirs, fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus. I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace, given me through the working of His power. Though I am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to illuminate for everyone the stewardship of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things.
Walk the Square · a single-voice walk of this pair around the Clowney square14:06
Significance
Paul's repeated use of mystērion in Ephesians 3:3-9 — the "mystery made known by revelation" (kata apokalypsin egnōristhē moi to mystērion) that was "hidden for ages" and "now revealed" — draws on the conceptual framework established in Daniel 2, where mystērion (LXX rendering of Aramaic raz) refers to the divine secret about God's eschatological kingdom that only God can reveal. In Daniel 2, Nebuchadnezzar's dream contains a "mystery" about the succession of kingdoms and the coming of God's indestructible kingdom; Daniel receives the revelation because "there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries" (Dan 2:28). Paul adopts this apocalyptic vocabulary to describe the previously hidden plan that Gentiles would be "fellow heirs" and "members of the same body" in Christ. The parallel structure is striking: in both cases, the mystery concerns God's kingdom purposes, was hidden from human wisdom, and required divine revelation to be made known. Paul's contribution is to identify the specific content of the mystery — Gentile inclusion — and to locate its revelation in the Christ event, thus advancing Daniel's eschatological framework from political kingdoms to the spiritual reality of the church as the body of Christ.
