The “mystery” includes… all the doctrinal details, the special information, that the ascended Lord Jesus disclosed to the Apostle Paul. This is the doctrine that the Holy Spirit revealed to Paul for the Gentiles… via Paul’s un-prophesied apostleship and ministry. This information is the truth that makes us secure and supplied by all that Christ has done for us at the cross and that He now is by living His “Spirit of life” in us, as His grace age believers.

We learn about “Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery,” (Rom 16:25) by reading Paul’s epistles (Eph. 3:4; 2 Tim. 2:7). Most Christian will say “I know about Jesus,” but to really know Him “according to the revelation of the mystery,” is to know Him in the light of “the revelation of the mystery,” the details of all that He and His cross-death has done for us and that His resurrection life is in us!

Do we really know the truths of Paul’s grace gospel concerning “the mystery”?

The true “riches of the glory of the mystery” (Col. 1:25-27) is “to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge” and so to be “filled with all the fulness of God” (Eph.3:19). His love and fullness is now ours to enjoy as we rest in reliance upon Him. These listed below are among the many details of “riches of the glory of this mystery,” that we learn from Paul concerning “Christ according to the revelation of the mystery.”

These riches should affect our understanding and daily life; riches of relationship, peace, rest, joy, and purpose!!!

• The superiority of Grace & Faith, in place of Law & Works of Israel’s program, during this age of “the grace of God.” (Rom 6:14, 11:6)
• Salvation flows freely from the cross, not acquired by our efforts in discipleship (Eph 2:8-9).
• Reconciliation – Christ’s reconciled all mankind unto God via “the death of Christ” (Rom 5:10).
• We enjoy Justification based upon Jesus’ full payment of man’s sin-debt, at the cross. (Rom 3:24)
• Redemption – We have been freed from being slaves to the Sin-nature. (Rom 3:24)
• Propitiation - Christ Himself was the propitiatory sacrifice (Rom 3:25) that has paid for all our sins, and yields all these “riches of the glory of the mystery” to every believer, by faith.
• Now in Christ, “No Condemnation” of God can ever come upon believers. (Rom 8:1)
• We will never see the angry face of God’s “wrath.” (1Thes 5:9)
• We have Unconditional “Acceptance in the beloved” (Eph 1:6). We’ve been delivered from the performance based acceptance system of “the Law.” (Rom 6:14)
• We have the impartation of the resurrected “Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” in every believer’s human spirit… empowering us to see, know, and live by Christ’s life within us.
• Our spirit-union with Christ’s “Spirit of life” is forever indissoluble (1Cor 6:17, Rom 8:9-10).
• We have all been “baptized into His body” – “the body of Christ.” (1Cor 12:13)
• In this age, Christ has broken down the “middle wall of partition,” making of Himself a joint-body (Eph 2:15) that consists of Jews and Gentiles… now without racial distinction at all. (Gal. 3:28)
• We’ve been made secure, being “sealed with the Spirit.” (Eph 1:13)
• We rest in the Father’s work to “conform us to the image of His Son.” (Rom 8:28-29, Philip. 2:13)
• Our destiny is to obtain a new, resurrected, glorified spirit-body (1Cor 15:51-52).
• We enjoy the rihes of "the fellowhip of the Mystery" (Eph. 3:9)
• We recognize no racal distinction among the members of 'the chruch which is the body of Christ"  - for all are "one in Christ." (Gal 3:27-28)
• Our destiny is to dwell in our home in heaven… forever (Philip. 3:20-21, 2Cor 5:1b).

Before Paul, from the cross… to the time Paul’s ministry began, in Acts 13, no person had knowledge of “the riches of the glory of this mystery” that were to be found in the cross of Christ for all mankind.

Peter obviously didn’t know, since at Pentecost he scolded “Ye men of Israel,” saying they had “killed the Prince of Peace” (Acts 3:15), obviously not yet knowing of the riches that flow from the cross. At Pentecost Peter never shared any meaning or significance of the cross… because he had no such knowledge. It was not until he received that knowledge from Paul that Peter, along with John and James, could know the riches of the cross of Christ. Thus later, Peter wrote this below in his last epistle, shortly before his death;

“And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even As Our Beloved Brother Paul also according to the Wisdom given unto him hath Written Unto You; ¹⁶ As also in All His (Paul’s) Epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some Things Hard to be Understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest (twist), as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.” (2 Peter 3:15-16)

Considering Peter’s words (above), it’s important that we have a clear understanding of Paul’s words in Col. 1:25-27. If we don’t understand these for what they actually say and mean we may simply conclude, as some do, that Christ living in us is mysterious. It’s not mysterious, it’s now “revealed”! Then we would lose the dispensational truths these verses convey, which the average Bible reader misses because of their denominational eyeglasses. Paul’s words are most often misread because they are not understood in light of the dispensational boundary, whereby God brought a change in the program of God for us today.