One New Man: The Mystery of Messiah

The Mystery of Messiah

One New Man; The Mystery of Messiah

by Ariel Blumenthal

Paul concludes his teaching of the One New Man in the first 6 verses of Ephesians chapter 3.

Ephesians 3:2-6

Surely you have heard about the plan of God’s grace given to me for you— ³ that the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I wrote before briefly. ⁴ When you read this, you can understand my insight into the mystery of Messiah— ⁵ which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations, as it has now been revealed by the Ruach to His holy emissaries and prophets. ⁶ This mystery is that the Gentiles are joint heirs and fellow members of the same body and co-sharers of the promise in Messiah Yeshua through the Good News.

He calls it a “mystery,” and then “the mystery of Messiah,” which was uniquely committed to him by God’s grace. He even declares that this mystery is something that was not revealed (or at least not in the same way) to the OT prophets; but is now being revealed to/by the NT apostles and prophets.

He concludes: to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus) through the gospel… (Ep 3:4-6)

Here, the Apostle uses three compound words in the Greek to describe the mystery: synkleroma, sysoma, synmetoka -- all starting with the prefix “syn,” from which we get English words like synchronize, synthesize, and synergy. NT Greek scholars tell us that it is hard to capture the clout of these three words in other languages.

1. First is synkleroma—“co-heirs.” 

This legal term suggests not just an equality of shared privilege, as in two business partners or family members sharing profits or an inheritance; not simply “joint heirs” like the two brothers in the story of the Prodigal Son—ie, “we have a common father, I get my portion and you get yours.”

Instead it is more like two “blood-brothers” who have utterly bound themselves together, totally dependent on each other for whatever inheritance, hope, and success they can expect to receive from their common father. In Messiah, we Jews won’t get our ultimate inheritance from the Father until the nations get theirs—and vice-versa!

2.   Second is sysoma—“co-body” people, “of one body.”

As in Romans 12:5 or 1 Corinthians 12:27, the Apostle describes the ecclesia with an organic, biological term — we are a living body, and Messiah is the head. Now, in the Gospel of Messiah, Jew and Gentile have become one living organism, with the same spiritual blood of Messiah joining us together. We have the same heavenly DNA, we are of the same family/household. (John 1:13) Whatever happens to one part of the body effects the whole.

3. synmetoka—“partakers of the same promise” in Christ Jesus.

“Promise” is in the singular, not “promises.” In keeping with the rest of Paul’s writings, we can understand him to be specifically referring to the pre-figured, Gospel promise made to Abraham, as taught in Romans 4, 8:17, and Galatians 3:26-29. Romans 4:11-17 brings together these ideas from Ephesians 3:6, and other chapters in this book.

Abraham was made a promise (singular), described in two ways:

• that he would be the “heir of the world” and that

• he would be “a father of many nations.”

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The incredible mystery of the Gospel is that together in Messiah Yeshua (the greatest son of Abraham!) Jew and Gentile are co-heirs of the same Abrahamic promise. We are members of the same Messianic family (the body of Messiah); and all of this is based on the very same promise made to our now mutual father/ancestor—Abraham.