Very few Christians have seen Paul’s completing ministry. This term, the completing ministry, is based upon Colossians 1:25, where Paul says he was commissioned “to complete the word of God.” To complete the word of God means to complete the revelation of God. No doubt the King James Version’s rendering of “complete the word of God” as “fulfil the word of God” has somewhat obscured the real meaning.
Without Paul’s writings the revelation of God is not complete. If his fourteen Epistles, from Romans through Hebrews, were taken from the Bible, it would no doubt still be a marvelous book. Think how wonderful Genesis is! How great a book Exodus is! Yet without Paul’s Epistles we could not have had the wonderful Life-studies on Genesis and Exodus. Why? Though Genesis and Exodus are admirable, without Paul’s writings they lack completion.
Notice the two verses which follow Colossians 1:25 about the completing of the word of God: “The mystery which has been hidden from the ages and from the generations, but now has been manifested to His saints; to whom God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the nations, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (vv. 26-27). Grammatically speaking, “the mystery” is in apposition with “to complete the word of God.” The completion of the word of God is the mystery. This mystery, which was hidden but is now manifested, concerns “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Well, you may wonder, does not Matthew tell us about Christ? And is Christ not the subject of the other Gospels? Surely every book of the New Testament is about Christ. None of these books except Paul’s, however, say that Christ is God’s mystery. Matthew deals with the mystery of the kingdom of God, but does not present Christ as God’s mystery. Mark and Luke make no mention of this matter. Even in John’s Gospel the word mystery is not to be found. It does occur in his Revelation, but it is not as clearly mentioned as in Paul’s Epistles. Only Paul uses the word mystery for Christ and for His Body.
Christ is a mystery. What is the source of Christ as a mystery? It is surely God. Both the Jews and the Moslems claim to know God. They are of a similar origin, in that their faith is based on the Old Testament. (The Moslem Bible, the Koran, is largely an imitation of the Old Testament, with some changes.) The God in whom the Jews and Moslems believe is the God of the Old Testament. In the New Testament our God is the God in Christ and through Christ. To be a Christian is to come into Christ and through Him into God. God is embodied in this Christ. The fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily (Col. 2:9). God’s entire being is embodied in Christ. My body is the embodiment of me; if you want to find where I am, you will find me in this body. Similarly, our Christ is the embodiment of God. If anyone has a God who is apart from Christ, he must be like a Jew or a Moslem. God, then, is the source of this mystery.
What is the issue of this mystery? This mystery comes out of God and issues in the church, including all the believers of Christ. In the whole universe this is the mystery! Without such a word the Bible is not complete. This completion of the word is this great mystery: Christ as the mystery of God and the church as the mystery of Christ. These two comprise the mystery of the ages. They are unfolded to us in Paul’s completing ministry.
In this message and in the next two we want to consider what the focus is of Paul’s completing ministry. We have elsewhere referred to Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians, and Colossians as the heart of the divine revelation. In these messages we shall discuss the central vision, the focal point, of Paul’s completing ministry.
We have three messages on this subject because Paul’s ministry has three main points: God, Christ, and the church. This message will be concerning God. However, I would first like to comment on Christ, the subject of our second message. The matter of the Trinity is the most puzzling in the whole Bible. If we want to know Christ, we must understand this puzzle. If we do not understand how God is in Christ, we know neither God nor Christ. If we do not know how Christ is related to, even identical with, the Spirit, we do not know either Christ or the Spirit.