Paul’s Post-Acts “great mystery” (Eph. 5:32) was God’s plan for the Spiritual “church, which is His Body” to reign in the heavenly places (2Tim. 2:12). Though God conceived and planned to have His “chosen” members before the present world began, it was “kept secret since the world began,” “hid in God” until the time of its implementation and revelation to Paul for us today.

“This is a great mystery [Grk. musterion, secret]: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” Eph. 5:32

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath [already] blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:” ⁴According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:” Eph. 1:3-4

Yet the present age of the dispensation of “the mystery” is still a mystery to most believers today. How can this be? Could it be that the teachings of man’s traditional religious organizations are erroneously based on the wrong gospel?

For certain there are at least two conflicting gospels in the N.T.

• Jesus’ “gospel of the kingdom” and the Twelve Apostles during the Acts period is that which Peter says was of the message “preached by all the holy prophets [of Israel] since the world began” (cf. Acts 3:21). 
• But just think about it, something preached so widely as Jesus’ “gospel of the kingdom” in accord with the O.T Prophets of Israel cannot be of the same as Paul’s “my mystery” (secret gospel),” that “had been kept secret since the world began.” 

“Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my [Paul’s] gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of The Mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,” Rom. 16:25

This refers to the formerly secreted gospel message that Paul says is for today’s age of “the dispensation of the grace of God.” Ephesians 3:2

The word “mystery” in Paul’s epistles comes from the Greek form musterion which is from the root ‘muo’ which means “shut the mouth.” In the Bible it is used by God to withhold His plan or truth from … Satan, intending to reveal the truth when it serves God’s purpose to … reveal that truth to those He chose (cf. Eph. 1:4)

The “Great Mystery” in the NT is not mysterious, but it is simply that which, being outside the range of unassisted natural comprehension, but it can be made known only by divine revelation, and is made known in a manner and at a time appointed by God, and only by His Holy Spirit. God’s hidden truth in the Bible is not revealed to just anyone. (Mark 4:9-12, 1 Cor 2:9-11, 13-15)

A “mystery” which has been revealed is no longer a mystery to those whom it has been revealed. It then becomes a ‘truth for the times.’ It is only a mystery to whom it has not been revealed. To them the truth is still hidden, as it is today among most Christians.

Satan’s works to veil God’s truth using religion and tradition most effectively to hide the truth of the mystery. The religious teaching of religious tradition sounds similar to the truth, but misleading, as it is mainly based upon the wrong gospel. Most often it is Jesus’ “gospel of the Kingdom” and its hope of the Nation Israel. This is what Paul preached right up to the end of Acts 29:20, just 8 verses before the fall of Israel and it hope of the kingdom was put in abeyance. The religious tradition of teaching the gospel of the kingdom come on earth as promised to Israel the binding agent to Satan’s misplaced truth that then is a lie. These lies create all the confusion, contradiction and divisions in man’s religious Christian churches. It is no wonder the churches are important, preaching as gospel of time past and of another age.

The “mystery” of today concerns the spiritual Gentile “the body of Christ.” It is God’s choice of the called-out souls who fill His “One body” in “the heavenly places.” The details of this body are found in Paul’s Post-Acts prison epistles: primarily as seen in Ephesians 1:1-23 and Colossians 1:21-29, 2:11-15, 3:1-4. This company is of a “heavenly” calling and a “heavenly” hope. Thus, it is totally apart from Israel’s Earthly Kingdom Gospel. It is apart from Israel’s calling and hope of a restored kingdom on earth that is seen in Paul’s inter-Acts writings before Acts 28:28.

The ‘dispensation of the mystery’ is found nowhere in the Old Testament, the Gospels, the epistles of James, Jude, John, or Peter, nor Paul’s Acts period epistles, or John’s book of the Revelation!

During this present ~2,000-year age Israel is set aside, as Lo-Ammi (“not my people” Hos 1:9), while the “salvation of God is sent to the Gentiles, and that they will hear [heed] it” (Acts 28:26-28).

John’s Gospel per 3:16 promises Christs “everlasting life” to “whosoever believeth,” which will be on the new earth. This does not mean that all such saved believers have been “chosen” unto “the heavenly places” according to Paul’s “revelation of the mystery,” which is of a totally separate calling and hope from anything to do with Israel with her calling and hope.

During today’s dispensational age God is calling out his “chosen” to form “His body” (ekklesia). He reveals the “great mystery” to those whom he already “chose” to reveal it by the Holy Spirit, as confirmed in the “word of truth” “rightly divided.”

The ‘ekklesia’ [i.e., church] of “the mystery” is His gathered body, a spiritual “body” (Eph 2:22) that is invisible to the world, but based upon revealed Scriptural truth. The truth of God sets men free (John 8:32, 36; free as the wind, free from bondage to man’s ‘tradition’ and ‘religion.’

This called out company of believers are of God’s choosing (Eph 1:4), not at all of our merit. We are given ‘the spirit of wisdom and revelation to acknowledge Him and whose eyes of understanding are enlightened to know what is the hope of His calling’ (cf. Ephesians 1:17-18) This mystery (secret) was totally hidden from Satan, but it is now unveiled by God for us to see and understand. For this we are thankful always that…:

• He has blessed us with every blessing that is spiritual (Eph 1:3)
• He has chosen us in Him before the overthrow of the world (Eph 1:4)
• That we should be holy and without blame before Him (Eph 1:4)
• He predestinated us unto the adoption as sons (Eph 1:5)
• He made us accepted in the beloved (Eph 1:6)
• He redeemed us through His blood, the forgiveness of sins (Eph 1:7)
• He abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence (Eph 1:8)
• He made known to us the mystery of His will (Eph 1:9)
• He obtained us as an inheritance (Eph 1:11)
• He sealed us with the Holy Spirit of promise (Eph 1:13)
• He quickened us together with Christ (Eph 2:5)
• He raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus where Christ sits on the right hand of God (Eph 2:6, Col 3:1)
• We died and our life is hid with Christ in God (Col 3:3)
• When Christ who is our life shall appear (epiphaneia), then shall we also appear with Him in glory (Col 3:4)

1. The Post-Acts called-out “which is His body,” are looking for Christ’s “appearing” (epiphaneia, Col 3:4) and for their “out resurrection,” out from among the dead. (Phil 3:11)
2. By contrast, the inter-Acts Judeo-Christian ekklesia was looking for Christ’s return and presence (parousia, 1Thes. 4:17) and a so-called “rapture” into the millennial kingdom of Israel ON EARTH.

These above are two are separate events.

I believe God’s next move is the manifestation of Christ in the heavens, complete with this “His body”; the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.  Christ as “the Head” of the body cannot be manifest in Heaven until His body is filled full, After Which He will come, which is Israel’s hope.

• Portions adapted from writings by Alan Naas with emphasis added.