Do You Want to Know a Secret?

Why did Picasso’s paintings distort the world?

He answered:

The world doesn’t make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?[1]

Peter David goes even further when he writes,

In real life, ... nothing makes sense. Bad things happen to good people. The pious die young while the wicked live until old age. War, famine, pestilence, death all occur randomly and senselessly and leave us more often than not scratching our heads and hurling the question ‘Why?’ into a void that provides no answers.[2]

Many, if not most, harbor similar thoughts. They conclude that the world and life do not make sense.

Much like anything else, what you see depends on where you stand. Things look different if you stand in a different place and view the same object. Where do you stand when it comes to viewing world events or life?   

Paul introduces a place to stand when we view the world and life in the past and the future.

As before, I encourage you to pause and refresh your memory by reading Ephesians 1:3-14. Our focus will be on verses 9-10.

Secret in the past

Ephesians 1:9 gives us God’s perspective as we view the past. Here’s the text (NASB):

… He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him …

Let’s begin by examining one term to understand this verse better.

Mystery is that one term, which translates the Greek word mustērion, a prominent subject in Ephesians occurring six times (1:9; 3:3, 4, 9; 5:32; 6:19).

When we think of mystery, such as a mystery novel, we think of something hidden, enigmatic, or unknown—but eventually, if we are clever enough, we can use the clues to reveal that mystery. In the Bible, a mystery “does not denote something difficult to work out—it means something impossible to work out.[3]

Harold Hoehner confirms this when he writes,

[A mystery] refers to something in ages past, hidden in God (3:9) and unable to be unravelled or understood by human ingenuity or study.[4]

What is this mystery that humans are unable to unravel or understand?

Consider the incarnation—God becoming a human named Jesus. Who could imagine that the Creator of the universe would willingly be encased as an embryo in the womb of Mary?

Or would this Jesus live among us in relative poverty, sharing what it means to be a human: misunderstood, rejected, and suffering?

Or that the God-man would be nailed to a Roman cross, giving his life for the world? Who could conceive this as part of God’s great plan—His victory?

At this point, we insert Paul’s commentary (1 Corinthians 2:7-8):

… we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory …

Or who could conceive that the dead body of Jesus would be raised to life from the tomb?

These are all part of the mystery we could not unravel or understand by ingenuity or study. It was God’s secret, which He kept hidden.

God’s secret revealed

Ephesians 1:9 opens with God “… made known to us the mystery of His will …”

We can listen in stereo as we continue Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 2:9-10:

… but just as it is written [Isaiah 64:4], “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him.”

That is God’s mystery, which was hidden in the past. But something changed, and God has now “made known to us the mystery of His will.”

For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.

The mystery is now made known; the secret is revealed.

We might speculate when the secret was revealed. At this point, let me suggest that the pieces began to fall into place at the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But even then, the disciples were somewhat puzzled. For sure, at Pentecost—when Jesus baptized his own in the Spirit, and the Spirit took up residence in the believers—everything ‘clicked.’

Two further points

Here are two further points to help our understanding:

God made know the mystery of His will:

• according to His kind intention
• which He purposed in Him.

1.         “according to His kind intention” is a phrase we encountered a few verses earlier in 1:5. In the same way, what God did here was not done grudgingly or unwillingly. He wanted to reveal His will to us, and it gave him great pleasure.

2.         “which He purposed in Him” led me to the scene of two despondent disciples walking home to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). Jesus, as a stranger, joined them on their journey and began helping them make sense of their confusion and disappointment—after all, “we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel …” (24:21).

These disciples stood in the wrong place, and from there, they could not see what had happened. Here is how Jesus began to shift their perspective so they could see what God had done and was doing (24:25-27):

And He said to them, “O foolish [ones] and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.

From the perspective of the resurrected Jesus, the Holy Spirit enables us to see things rightly and fully; that is where we must stand to understand what God has done in the past. After all, God’s will in the past was “purposed in Him.”

What next?

For now, we can answer Picasso, Peter David, and others who say nothing in the world or life makes sense. We respond by pointing out that they are standing in the wrong place as they examine the world and life.

Instead, when we view the past from ‘in Christ,’ things come into focus, and we can understand God working out His will in a disobedient and rebellious world.

Yet again, we become aware of another divine blessing: the believer’s status ‘in Christ’ is higher, deeper, wider, and richer than ever imagined. We can now add that it is the key to unlocking the mystery of God at work in the past.

I close with a quote from the German theologian Leonhard Goppelt:

Jesus of Nazareth … is the focal point that gathers all the rays of light that issue from Scripture.[5]

Our next post will explore Ephesians 1:10, which points us toward the future.

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FORWARD TO the next post in this series

BACK TO What Do Redeemed, Forgiven, and Grace Mean for You?

Notes:
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/496156-the-world-doesn-t-make-sense-so-why-should-i-paint (accessed February 6, 2025).
[2] Attributed to Peter David (https://www.azquotes.com/quote/417480?ref=nothing-makes-sense), accessed February 6, 2025. For my purposes, I have taken this out of David’s context: truth does not make sense, but fiction does. I am stating that Jesus Christ, who is the Truth, makes sense of everything.
[3] Leon Morris, Expository Reflections on the Letter to the Ephesians (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1994), 22.
[4] Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002), 214.
[5] Leonhard, Goppelt, Typos: Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New (Eugene, OR: Wipf, 2016), 58.

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