The Mystery Paul Revealed

The line drawn in the last chapter ran between the saints of old and us. This one runs deeper, through the very nature of the believer, and it is usually put like this:

“The born-again person is a new creation that has not existed since the foundation of the world. This was hidden in the Old Testament. Even in the Gospels, Yeshua spoke only in parables, and Paul made it known by revelation.”

Much of this is Scripture’s own language, and that should be said plainly before anything else.

What Is True in It

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Messiah, he is a new ktisis κτίσις ktis'-is(creation); the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

“He is a new ktisis(creation).” Ktisis (κτίσις) is the word for an act of founding, of bringing something into being, and Paul means it. The one who is in Messiah is not merely repaired; he is made new.

Ephesians 2:6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Messiah Yeshua,

Raised up with Him and seated with Him in the heavenly places: these are not exaggerations to be explained away. They are the words of Scripture, and we receive them.

The question, then, is not whether the believer is a new creation, for he is. The question is what follows from it. The claim concludes that the new creation is a kind of being the Old Testament never knew, a being without Torah, kept secret until Paul. For that conclusion it leans on one word Paul uses: mystery.

Opening the Envelope

Picture an envelope marked “To be opened later.” For years it sits on a shelf while people guess at what is inside, and some are certain it holds a new will that cancels the old one. Then the day comes when someone opens it and reads it aloud, and from that moment the guessing is over. The letter says what it says.

Paul did not leave the mystery sealed. He opened it and read it to us:

Ephesians 3:3-6 that by apokalypsis ἀποκάλυψις ap-ok-al'-oop-sis(revelation) there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Messiah, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His hagio(holy) apostles and prophets in the pneuma πνεῦμα pnyoo'-mah(spirit); to be specific, that the nations are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow metochoi(fellow-participants) of His promise in Messiah through the good news,

Mysterion (μυστήριον) means a hidden thing, a secret. Paul says that this one “in other generations was not made known to the sons of men.” Had he stopped there, we might have been tempted to fill in the blank ourselves, but he does not stop. He goes straight on, “to be specific,” and then gives the content of the secret: “that the nations are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow metochoi(fellow-participants) of His promise in Messiah through the good news.”

That is the mystery. It is not that a new being without Torah has appeared, but that the nations, the Gentiles, are brought in as full partners.

The word “fellow” appears three times, in fellow heirs, fellow members, and fellow participants. No one can be a fellow heir unless someone already holds the inheritance, and no one can share in a promise unless the promise already exists. Paul even calls it “His promise.” The mystery is not a new house built from nothing. It is the door of the old house opened wide to the nations, which is exactly what Ephesians 2 says about the wall that came down, as Chapter 1 showed.

Nothing but Moses and the Prophets

If the new creation had been a secret entirely absent from the Old Testament, Paul could never have said what he said to King Agrippa:

Acts 26:22 So, having obtained help from God, I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, stating nothing but what the Prophets and Moses said was going to take place:

Paul spent his life preaching the good news to the nations, and standing before a king he insists that he said nothing Moses and the Prophets had not already said. The revelation he received opened the meaning of what was written; it did not replace it.

Only Parables?

The claim also says that in the Gospels Yeshua spoke only in parables, as though His teaching were a veiled preview and the real message came later through Paul. Mark tells us otherwise:

Mark 4:33-34 With many such parables He was speaking the logos λόγος log'-os(word) to them, so far as they were able to hear it; and He did not speak to them without a parable — but privately He was explaining everything to His own disciples.

The parables were for the crowds outside, “but privately He was explaining everything to His own disciples.” The word is everything. The disciples were not left with riddles.

What they were taught, they were sent to teach. At the end of Matthew, the risen Yeshua sends them to make disciples of all the nations, “teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” (Matthew 28:20). The word for observe is tereo τηρέω tay-reh'-o, to keep. The commandments Yeshua gave, recorded in the Gospels, are what the disciples of all the nations are to keep. They are not a preview to be set aside once Paul arrives, and Paul himself measured every teaching by those words:

1 Timothy 6:3 If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Yeshua Messiah, and with the teaching conforming to godliness,

For Paul, a teaching that does not agree with the “sound words, those of our Lord Yeshua Messiah” is a “different doctrine.” He could not have set those words aside as parables for a past era.

The New Creation in Its Own Letter

Finally, return to 2 Corinthians, the letter in which Paul speaks of the new creation, and read what surrounds the phrase. Just before it, he had written this:

2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the bema βῆμα bay'-ma(judgment-seat) of Messiah, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

The new creation still appears before the judgment seat and is recompensed “according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” A new creation is not a creature beyond the reach of its deeds.

A chapter later Paul asks “what partnership have dikaiosyne δικαιοσύνη dik-ah-yos-oo'-nay(righteousness) and anomia ἀνομία an-om-ee'-ah(Torah-lessness)” (2 Corinthians 6:14), and the answer is none. The new creation stands on the side of righteousness, and what it has no partnership with is anomia, Torah-lessness. Then he writes, “let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of sarx σάρξ sarx(flesh) and pneuma(spirit), perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1). This is how the new creation lives: not without commandments, but cleansing itself and perfecting holiness.

The letter that gives us the phrase “new creation” also gives us its shape. The new creation is judged by its deeds, has no partnership with anomia, and is perfecting holiness. Paul’s new creation is real, and it is entirely new, but it is not a being without Torah.

The next claim turns from the nature of the believer to the way believers speak of one another, and it rests on Romans 14:4, a verse best read from the first verse of its chapter.