This book resulted from an extraordinary spiritual experience I encountered a few summers ago in which I came to understand the Bible in quite a new way. The writings of the apostle Paul are the focus of my synopsis, starting with the passage in Ephesians from which the book's title is derived. Some English language Bibles translate the phrase "fellowship of the mystery" whilst others utilize a textual variant which reads in the Greek "oikonomia" (administration or dispensation) rather than "koinonia" (fellowship) - either of which will suffice given that Paul is here referring to the Church, being both a community or fellowship but also an administration pertaining to the gospel age. I will show that it was the unforetold nature and racial make-up of this sacred assembly that led to Saul of Tarsus being called "out due of time" as the thirteenth faithful apostle, Matthias having replaced Judas Iscariot to make up the twelve. That was so that Paul might "enlighten everyone concerning the fellowship pertaining to the secret (plan) known only to God who had created all things through Jesus Christ; (this mystery or secret) having been hidden through the ages from the authorities of Heaven is brought to light through the Church, so revealing the multi-faceted nature of God's wisdom regarding His purpose for the ages which He accomplished in Christ (Eph3:9-11). God's secret plan, a mystery from our perspective, was revealed to Paul and somewhat cryptically by him; its meaning obscured further by some spurious translations such that its significance has largely been hidden from the Church, in accordance I believe with divine intentions for her pathway of discovery. Once Paul's meaning here is grasped and taken together with its related passage in Romans (ch11 vv11-15), one's understanding of divine providence is transformed as one comes to appreciate that the exclusive Covenants of Promise pertaining to Israel and the Church are just a part of a broader, more inclusive redemptive strategy.
In terms of prophecy, what I refer to in shorthand as "the fellowship of the secret" explains why the expectations of the Old Testament prophets and even some of Jesus’s prophetic statements in the Gospels are neither being fulfilled in reality nor "realized within the spiritual sphere by the Church", apart from in a certain dual perspective sense that I explain in my opening chapter, by which I mean that what had been anticipated for the Temple but not fulfilled there, will be, or has already been paralleled within Church history. Other matters such as any applicable geopolitical considerations pertaining to the Jewish apocalypse and Israel's status as the "children of the Kingdom" are not currently being fulfilled, rather placed on hold until in Paul's words "the fullness of the Gentiles has come in" (Rom11:25). That is referring to the time when Christ shall come in glory to herald what Scripture variously describes as "the renaissance" (Mt19:28), the liberation of the created order (Rom8:19-23) or "the restoration of all things" (Acts3:21). Traditionally many understand the Parousia to be the end of the space-time universe when Christians (and some might add faithful Jews) are transported to Heaven and everyone else is effectively consigned to the cosmic wastepaper basket. Their understanding of the Good News, and in the past my understanding, was that only the members of the exclusive Covenants of Promise were the people that God intended to reconcile to Himself and bring into His Kingdom. The bulk of humanity, as the most influential theologian of the first Christian millennium Augustine of Hippo made a point of emphasizing, were destined for eternal punishment in accordance with God's good pleasure: “Many more are left under punishment than are delivered from it, in order that it may thus be shown what was due to all” A .
Many Christians have come to perceive or at least sense in their bones that such a cosmic outcome is inconsistent with the term “Gospel” (Good News) as well as God’s nature as Scripture presents it and Jesus as the incarnate Word revealed it. With, I believe, the Spirit’s help, I have set out how a more beneficent providence may faithfully be adduced from Scripture without undermining the vital utility of gospel grace or the role of the Church. Like the apostle Paul I have come to know God to be a Philanthropist (Titus3:4 cf. Greek), a depiction utilized by some of the earliest Church fathers as the necessarily small-scale patristic study I have incorporated affirms. Unfortunately for many, such broader benign providence cannot be delineated without critically re-examining the biblical hermeneutics of one of Rome’s most revered doctors – Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. His synopsis, whilst not wholly endorsed was substantially utilized by the Early Catholic Church and built upon a thousand years later by the Protestant Reformers who corroborated his emphasis on human moral ineptitude and one-dimensional grace. Such a schema does not lend itself to amelioration; it must either be taken as read or virtually redrawn from scratch. Of necessity I have undertaken the latter, providing, I trust, a thoroughly coherent biblical synopsis, incorporated for the moment in this e-book, being an especially timely technological development for the propagation of such a disclosure, providing readers with online access to the Greek and Hebrew linear translations of the BibleB as well as to the writings of those earliest (apostolic) Fathers who had not been entirely dependant on biblical exegesis having heard the Good News and its essential soteriology directly from the apostles or their immediate appointees.
I am no academic and this book is hardly the result of a life-long study, for my understanding of certain biblical passages was transformed during the ten or so days I was conscious of the Holy Spirit’s immediate presence, a time of weeping, rejoicing and virtual nervous breakdown – an experience that from my conservative Christian background I was not expecting or barely open to receiving. However, the new understanding I have come to has been confirmed at the personal level by its ability to resolve many tensions and inconsistencies within Scripture, in the process demonstrating the existence of evil and its associated suffering to be a necessary part of the transformative process by which all redeemable humanity is being prepared for future participation in God’s Kingdom.
INTRODUCTION - REFERENCES:
A Augustine – “The City of God” Book XXI chapter 12
B Greek and Hebrew interlinear Bible