What Is the Gospel?
Read Ephesians 3:1-9
Many people since the time of Christ have died for their faith. We know that ten of the twelve disciples were martyred. Judas took his own life and John, alone, of the twelve died of natural causes. The Apostle Paul was imprisoned and suffered confinement several times in the service of Christ (Ephesians 4:1; Acts 16:23; 24:23; Colossians 4:10; 2 Timothy, 1: 8; Philemon 1) and was ultimately beheaded under the reign of Emperor Nero in 64 AD.
In our reading today Paul says that he is a prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of the Gentiles. He wants the Ephesian Gentiles to know this. Notice that he does not say that he is a prisoner of the Jews nor of the Romans, but rather he is a prisoner of Christ. Paul is under house arrest, and as far as he is concerned this captivity is foreordained by Christ. Paul knows that his call and his ministry are for the sake of the Gentiles. (Ephesians 3:1) Paul was the apostle, teacher, and preacher to the Gentiles (1 Timothy 2:7; 2 Timothy 1:11), so the sufferings he experienced during his ministry were on their behalf (2 Corinthians 6:5; 11:23).
Paul says that there is a mystery here in the Gospel that was unknown until the coming of Christ. This mystery is now revealed: Christ has come to unify Jew and Gentile in one body to the Gospel, about which Paul had just written briefly (Ephesians 1:9, 17). Christ revealed this mystery to Paul by revelation on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1 – 7) and at other times ().
While Moses and the prophets had written of Christ and His salvation to the ends of the earth (John 5:46; 1 Peter 1:10 – 12), and while God had even promised Abraham that all the nations of the earth be blessed in him (Genesis 12:3), the full realization of who Christ was and the extent of the salvation that would come to the Gentiles was not clear until after the giving of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:8-10).
Paul now specifically states in verse 6 the content of the mystery which he had summarized in Ephesians 2:11 – 22. It is that, through the proclamation of the Gospel, the Gentiles are received into the Fellowship of Christ on an equal footing with Hebrew Christians. Three terms are used which speak of a co – relationship. He says that they are co-heirs. In Romans 8:17 Paul speaks of believers as being co-heirs with Christ. Here, as in Galatians 3:29 and 4:7, he stresses the fact that in Christ Gentiles are co-inheritors of the kingdom along with the Jews. But it goes even further. He says that they are co-members of the same body. There is a corporate relationship. We are of one body. Because of Christ, Gentiles are fellow partakers of the covenant promise made originally though never solely to the Jews.
Finally, Paul explains how he himself was enlisted in the service of this Gospel, not through any ambition or qualification of its own but solely through the gift and calling of God. (Ephesians 3:7) For Paul, he saw himself as duty bound to proclaim the Gospel (1 Corinthians 9:16), yet he regarded this burden as a gift of God’s grace because he served out of gratitude for the grace that he himself had received.
So what does this all mean for us today? What does this mean for your neighbor across the street? The question may not be, “What is the Gospel (to us as believers)?” But rather, “What is the Gospel to our neighbor?” Let’s look at that question tomorrow.