Regarding Christ as the mystery of the church, verse 6 says that “in Christ Jesus the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the Body and fellow partakers of the promise through the gospel.” The expression fellow heirs indicates that in God’s New Testament economy the chosen, redeemed, and regenerated Gentiles and the believing Jews are fellow heirs of God, inheriting God. The phrase fellow members of the Body indicates that the saved Gentiles and the saved Jews are fellow members of the one Body of Christ as His unique expression. The words fellow partakers indicate that the Gentile believers and the Jewish believers are fellow partakers of God’s promise given in the Old Testament, concerning all the blessings of God’s New Testament economy. Being fellow heirs is related to the blessing of the household of God; being fellow members of the Body, to the blessing of the Body of Christ; and being fellow partakers of the promise, to the blessing of the promise of God, such as in Genesis 3:15; 12:3; 22:18; 28:14; and Isaiah 9:6. Both the blessing of God’s household and the blessing of Christ’s Body are particular, whereas the blessing of God’s promise is general, all-inclusive.
In Ephesians 3 Paul tells us that the revelation of the mystery concerning Christ for the church has been given to the apostles and prophets. Paul’s revelation of Christ was mainly a revelation of Christ’s unsearchable riches. According to verse 8, Paul announced the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel. The riches of Christ are what Christ is to us, such as light, life, righteousness, and holiness, what He has for us, and what He accomplished, attained, and obtained for us. These riches of Christ are unsearchable and untraceable.
The unsearchable riches of Christ are the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9). How all-inclusive and extensive these riches are! The fullness of the Godhead has become the unsearchable riches of Christ to be dispensed into us for our experience and enjoyment.
The riches of Christ also include both human virtues and divine attributes. Christ is the real love, patience, and forgiveness. Apart from Christ we cannot love, be patient, or forgive, but when we have Christ, we have the uplifted human virtues and also certain of the divine attributes.
Christ’s riches are vast and inexhaustible. In the Scriptures these riches are depicted in types, such as light, the sun, the morning star, the vine, the apple tree, the cedar, the cypress, the Passover, wheat, barley, the henna flower, Adam, Abel, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Aaron, and Moses. Beneath the surface of the Bible are all the riches of Christ seen in the types. Because these riches are so vast, it is difficult for anyone to say how many types of Christ there are. Just this one matter of the types reveals many of the riches of Christ.
Christ’s riches are also portrayed in shadows, figures, prophecies, and in the fulfillment of prophecies. In the Bible the first prophecy concerning Christ is Genesis 3:15, a verse which predicts that Christ as the seed of the woman will bruise the head of the serpent, Satan. This implies that Christ had to become a man born of a virgin, for He was to be the seed of woman. This one verse reveals much of the riches of Christ.
All the riches of Christ are for the producing of the church. The church is produced not by teaching or by organizing but by the dispensing of Christ into us. The riches of Christ produce the church through our experience and enjoyment of Christ. On Christ’s side, it is a matter of dispensing, but on our side, it is a matter of experience and enjoyment. When we experience and enjoy Christ who is dispensed into us, we become part of the proper church life. As the riches of Christ are dispensed into us, we need to digest and assimilate them. By absorbing Christ’s riches in this way, we become His Body as His fullness to express Him (Eph. 1:22-23). Therefore, the Body of Christ is constituted of the riches of Christ enjoyed and assimilated by us.
Ephesians 3:9 says, “To enlighten all that they may see what the economy of the mystery is, which throughout the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things.” God’s mystery is His hidden purpose, which is to dispense Himself into His chosen people. Hence, there is the economy of the mystery of God. This mystery was hidden in God throughout the ages, but now the New Testament believers, having been enlightened, are able to see it.
In verse 9 the English word economy is an anglicized form of the Greek word oikonomia, which denotes a household administration, or arrangement. This means that God’s economy is God’s household management, God’s household administrative arrangement, the divine plan. In this economy, which is eternal and of God, a mystery was hidden. A mystery, a mysterious story, was hidden in the eternal God and in His eternal economy. This mystery, this mysterious story, is the church.