LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Christ, A Mistery Now Revealed
"Great is this mystery; but I say this concerning Christ and the church" (Eph. 5:32).
Until after the ascension of the Lord, the church, his bride and his future wife, was kept by God in mystery. It was a mystery, but today the Father wants to make it known. Before the coming of our Lord Jesus, the Scriptures teach us that there was a great mystery in the bosom of the Father: Christ. "…in order to know the mystery of God the Father, and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. 2:2-3).
Another mystery was also hidden in Christ: his church. "…and to clarify to all what is the dispensation of the mystery hidden from the centuries in God, who created all things; so that the manifold wisdom of God may now be made known through the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places" (Eph. 3:9-10).
But in the verse that we quoted at the beginning, the word of God tells us about another mystery; a great mystery that is in the previous verse: "For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother, and will be united to his wife, and the two will be one flesh" (Eph. 5:31 ). Genesis 2:23 makes us understand that mystery a little more when it says: "Then Adam said: This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh."
What does the Lord teach us with this? It is that today the Lord has his church that he loved and gave himself up for her on the cross. He is sanctifying and purifying her in the washing of water by the Word. The Spirit is transforming her from glory to glory into His image (2 Cor. 3:18).
When all is finished, then there will be no more Christ and the church, but we will be one: bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh; a glorified Body. One with Him. It is true that we will be like precious stones, like a jasper stone, like transparent crystal, but what will be seen is the glory of God (Rev. 21:11).
The glory that the Lord gave to the church will be manifested by him and by the church through the New Jerusalem, but as one, revealing the glory of the Father: "The glory that you gave me, I have given them, that they may be one just as we are one" (John 17:22). No longer Christ and the church, but Christ glorified; bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh, according to his glorious body. Only one. Great is this mystery.
Everything was a mystery, but now our Father wants to make known the richness of the glory of that mystery, which is Christ in us, the hope of that immeasurable glory (Col. 1:27). Blessed be our Lord Jesus Christ, before a mystery, but now a revelation of God!