Verse 26
This revelation included a "mystery." This term refers to a truth previously unknown but now revealed by God. In the Greek world it also referred to the secret ceremonies of pagan cults that only the initiated knew. Paul’s use was similar with the difference that God had now revealed this secret.
"The movement of world history is a linear progression which has also been directed by a secret purpose determined from the beginning by the one God." [Note: Dunn, p. 120.]
God had hidden this new revelation from human understanding for ages past. Paul expounded it more fully in Ephesians 3:3-9 and only gave its essence here as "Christ in [among] you [Gentiles]" (cf. Romans 8:10; 2 Corinthians 13:5; Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 1:13-14; Ephesians 3:17).
"For Christ to be among the Gentiles involved being in those who believed. And He was and is for them the hope of glory, the pledge that they shall share in His glory to come (cf. Colossians 3:4)." [Note: Johnson, 475:233.]
"The mystery was not that Gentiles would be saved but how they could be ’fellow-heirs’ (Ephesians 3:6, KJV), on the same level with Jews, with no middle wall of partition between them (Ephesians 2:12-14)." [Note: Geisler, p. 675. Cf. McGee, 5:346.]
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