We’re not given great details about what it is that Christ is engaged in doing following His ascension to Heaven. We do know He sat down by the Majesty on high, in Hebrews 1, that He is making intercession for the saints in Hebrews 7, yet there is another very strategic engagement Christ fulfilled that is frequently overlooked, and the consequences of this endeavor are truly staggering. We speak of what the ascended Christ provided by way of new information to Paul, the apostle, formerly Saul of Tarsus. Apparently, what Christ chose to reveal to Paul sometime after He was resurrected and ascended to Heaven was new information, information that Christ had never revealed to His twelve apostles prior to leaving them when He ascended from the Mount of Olives. Paul describes the incident, or incidents, in 1st Corinthians 12, and refers to them as an “abundance of revelations.” The Greek word for revelations is a word from which we get the English term “hyperbole”, a deliberate exaggeration, an exaggeration known and understood to be deliberate. Think of the revelations as “super abundant revelations,” a plethora, mega-revelations. But, revelations about what? At first, one might think the risen Christ would be bringing the Apostle Paul up-to-speed concerning Himself since Paul never had the benefit of knowing Christ for the three-plus years that the original twelve apostles knew Him. It would only seem logical that Christ would fill in for Paul everything he was lacking. But, no, this does not appear to be the case, at least based on what Paul himself tells us about that abundance of revelations the risen Christ revealed to him. Paul said they were never revealed to anyone else before.
How else could we understand his statement in Ephesians 3 when he wrote that “the revelation of this mystery was not made known to the sons of men in other ages past.” The essence of this new information concerned Jews and Gentiles becoming members of the same body, or entity, and both partakers of God’s promise in Christ by the Gospel. What? Jews and Gentiles together? Same body? Fellow heirs? Surely, you can’t be serious. But he was. The ascended Christ was revealing to Paul what He had never revealed to the twelve with whom He traveled and taught for over three years. This was brand-new content, content previously unheard of. Unthinkable! Jew and Gentile, one body? What is it? What would you call it? Call it the “spiritual body of Christ”. It’s comprised of all believers, whether Jew or Gentile, equal members, equal footing, equal heirs, complete everything, in this new organism called “The Church”, the body of Christ. All who believe are baptized by the Holy Spirit into the spiritual body of Christ. This, apparently, was one important mission and communication that radically updated information previously given.
CC-06-14
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