by John Piper
Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
Ephesians 3:4–10
There was a truth that was not fully and clearly revealed before the coming of Christ. This truth, now revealed, is called the “mystery of Christ.” It is the truth that people from all the nations of the world would be full and complete partners with the chosen people of God (Eph. 3:6). It is called the “mystery of Christ” because it is coming true “through the gospel” (3:6), which is about Christ.
Therefore, the gospel is not the revelation that the nations already belong to God. The gospel is the instrument for bringing the nations into this equal status of salvation. The mystery of Christ (drawing the nations into the inheritance of Abraham) is happening through the preaching of the gospel. Paul sees his own apostolic vocation as the means God is graciously using to declare the riches of the Messiah to the nations (3:8).
So a massive change has occurred in redemptive history. Before the coming of Christ, a truth was not fully revealed—namely, that the nations may enter with equal standing into the household of God (Eph. 2:19). The time was not “full” for this revelation because Christ had not been revealed from heaven. The glory and honor of uniting all the peoples was being reserved for him in his saving work. It is fitting then that the nations be gathered in only through the preaching of the message of Christ, whose cross is the peace that creates the worldwide church (Eph. 2:11–21).
In other words, there is a profound theological reason why salvation did not spread to the nations before the incarnation of the Son of God. The reason is that it would not have been clear that the nations were gathering for the glory of Christ. God means for his Son to be the center of worship as the nations receive the word of reconciliation. For this reason also, as we will see, the preaching of Christ is the means appointed by God for the ingathering of the nations.
(25a) Now to him who is able to strengthen you (25b) according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, (25c) according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages (26a) but has now been disclosed (26b) and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, (26c) according to the command of the eternal God, (26d) to bring about the obedience of faith—(27) to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.
Romans 16:25–27
This is a very complex sentence. But if we patiently examine its parts and notice how they relate to one another, the crucial meaning for missions emerges.
The verses are a doxology: “Now to him who is able to strengthen you . . .” But Paul gets so caught up in God that he does not come down again to the words of the doxology until verse 27: “to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.”
Sandwiched between the two parts of the doxology is a massive statement about the meaning of Paul’s gospel in relation to God’s eternal purposes. The thought moves as follows. The strength that Paul prays will come to the Romans (25a) accords with his gospel and the preaching of Christ (25b). This means that God’s power is revealed in the gospel Paul preaches, and that is the power he prays for them to be strengthened by.
Then he says that this gospel preaching is in accord with the revelation of a mystery kept secret for ages and now revealed (25c, 26a). In other words, what Paul preaches is not out of sync with God’s purposes. It “accords” with them. It expresses and conforms to them. His preaching is a part of God’s plan, which is now being revealed in history.
How is it being revealed? It is being disclosed through the prophetic writings (26c). This means that the mystery was not totally hidden in past ages. There were pointers in the prophetic writings, so much so that now these very Old Testament writings are used to make the mystery known. In Paul’s preaching of the gospel, he uses the prophetic writings to help him make known the mystery. (See, for example, how Paul does this in Romans 15:9–13.)
What then is the mystery? Verses 26c–26d say that making known this mystery accords with “the command of the eternal God for the obedience of faith to all the nations” (author’s translation). The most natural way to interpret this is to say that the mystery is the purpose of God to command all nations to obey him through faith.
But what makes this a mystery is that the command to the nations for the obedience of faith is specifically a command to have faith in Jesus, the Messiah of Israel, and thus become part of the people of God and heirs of Abraham (Eph. 2:19–3:6). In Romans 1:5, Paul describes his calling to the nations with these words: “We have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of [Christ’s] name among all the nations.” Here he makes plain that the aim “to bring about the “obedience of faith” in Romans 16:26d is a call for the sake of Christ’s name. It is thus a call to acknowledge and trust and obey Christ. This is the mystery hidden for ages—that all the nations would be commanded to trust in Israel’s Messiah and be saved through him.
The word “now” in 26a is crucial. It refers to the fullness of time in redemptive history when God put Christ forward onto the center stage of history. From “now” on things are different. The time has come for the mystery to be revealed. The time has come to command all the nations to obey God through faith in Jesus the Messiah.
God is “now” doing a new thing. With the coming of Christ, God will no longer allow “the nations to walk in their own ways” (Acts 14:16, see below). The time has come for all nations to be called to repent and for the mystery to be fully revealed that through faith in Christ the nations are “fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Eph. 3:6). Not without the gospel! But through the gospel. This will become increasingly obvious and crucial as we move on.
“The Times of Ignorance”
The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.
Acts 17:30–31
This text comes from Paul’s sermon to the Greeks on the Areopagus in Athens. He had noticed an “altar . . . to the unknown god.” In other words, just in case there was another god in the universe whom they did not know about, they had put up an altar, hoping that this “unknowing” act of homage would be acceptable to this deity. So Paul said, “What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you” (17:23).
It would be going too far to say that Paul means that true esteeming of the true God was going on in the building of this altar. One cannot truly esteem what one knows nothing about. The worshiping of the “unknown god” was simply a polytheistic admission that there might be another deity, unknown to them, whose favor, if he exists, they would like to have. This “ignorant” worship is one thing that makes the past generations “times of ignorance” (v. 30). And we will see that even when there is some knowledge of the true God (as in the case of Cornelius), the worship of the true God “ignorantly” is not a saving act.
The “times of ignorance” in Paul’s sermon correspond to the ages in which the “mystery of Christ” was kept secret (Rom. 16:25; Eph. 3:4–5; Col. 1:26). These were the times in which, according to Acts 14:16, God “allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways,” or as Acts 17:30 says, the times that God “overlooked.”
The fact that God overlooked the times of ignorance does not mean that he ignored sins so as not to punish sinners. This would contradict Romans 1:18 (“The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodl
iness and unrighteousness of men”) and Romans 2:12 (“All who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law”). Rather, God’s overlooking the “times of ignorance” refers to his giving men over to their own ways. His “overlooking” was his sovereign decision to postpone an all-out pursuit of their repentance through the mission of his people. “The reason why men have wandered from the truth for so long is that God did not stretch forth his hand from heaven to lead them back to the way. . . . Ignorance was in the world, as long as it pleased God to take no notice of it.”25
This does not mean that in the Old Testament there were no commands and instructions for Israel to bear witness to the nations of the grace of God and invite their participation in that grace in ways appropriate to that time in redemptive history (e.g., Gen. 12:2–3; Psalm 67). It means rather that for generations God did not intervene to purify, empower, and commission his people with the incarnation, crucifixion, Great Commission, and outpouring of Pentecostal power to fulfill it. Instead, for his own wise purposes, he “allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways”—and allowed his own nation to experience extended failures of reverence and holiness and love so that other nations would come to see the full need of a Redeemer from the corruption of sin and the curse of the law and the limitations of the old covenant for world evangelization.
God’s ways are not our ways. Even today we live in a similar time of “hardening”—only now the tables are turned, and it is Israel that is being passed over for a season.
Lest you [Gentiles] be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved.
Romans 11:25–26
There was a time when the Gentiles were passed over while God dealt with Israel, and now there is a time while Israel is largely passed over as God gathers the full number of his elect from the nations. This does not mean that we should neglect our mission toward Jew or Gentile “that [we] might save some” (Rom. 11:14; 1 Cor. 9:22). But God has his sovereign purposes in determining who actually hears and believes the gospel. And we may be sure that those purposes are wise and holy and will bring the greatest glory to his name.
We are given a glimpse in 1 Corinthians 1:21 of this divine wisdom: “Since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.” This says that it was God’s wisdom that determined that men would not know him through their wisdom. In other words, this is an instance and illustration of how God overlooked (i.e., glanced over) the times of ignorance and allowed humans to go their own ways.
Why? To make crystal clear that humans on their own, by their own wisdom (religion!), will never truly know God. An extraordinary work of God would be required to bring people to a true and saving knowledge of God, namely, the preaching of Christ crucified: “It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.” This is what Paul meant in Ephesians 3:6, when he said that the mystery of Christ is that the nations are becoming partakers of the promise “through the gospel.” Thus, 1 Corinthians 1:21 and Ephesians 3:6 are parallel ideas and utterly crucial for seeing that in this “now” of redemptive history, knowing the gospel is the only way to become an heir of the promise.
All boasting is excluded by God’s showing that man’s own wisdom in all the nations—his own self-wrought religions—do not bring him to God. Rather, God saves now by means of preaching that is “a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:23–24). In this way, all boasting is excluded, for left to himself man does not come to God.
In his inspiring book, A Vision for Missions, Tom Wells tells the story of how William Carey illustrates this conviction in his own preaching. Carey was an English Baptist missionary who left for India in 1793. He never came home but persevered for forty years in the gospel ministry.
Once he was talking with a Brahman in 1797. The Brahman was defending idol worship, and Carey cited Acts 14:16 and 17:30. God formerly “suffered all nations to walk in their own ways,” said Carey, “but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.”
“Indeed,” said the native, “I think God ought to repent for not sending the Gospel sooner to us.”
Carey was not without an answer. He said:
Suppose a kingdom had been long overrun by the enemies of its true king, and he though possessed of sufficient power to conquer them, should yet suffer them to prevail, and establish themselves as much as they could desire, would not the valour and wisdom of that king be far more conspicuous in exterminating them, than it would have been if he had opposed them at first, and prevented their entering the country? Thus by the diffusion of Gospel light, the wisdom, power, and grace of God will be more conspicuous in overcoming such deep-rooted idolatries, and in destroying all that darkness and vice which have so universally prevailed in this country, than they would have been if all had not been suffered to walk in their own ways for so many ages past.26
Carey’s answer to why God allowed nations to walk in their own ways is that in doing so the final victory of God will be all the more glorious. There is a divine wisdom in the timing of God’s deliverances from darkness. We should humble ourselves to see it rather than presume to know better how God should deal with a rebellious world.
In Acts 17:30, how does Paul assess the ignorant worship of the unknown god (17:23)? He says that the time has come for repentance in view of the impending judgment of the world by Jesus Christ (“He has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed” [Acts 17:31]). In other words, Paul does not reveal to the worshipers in Athens that they are already prepared to meet their Judge because they render a kind of worship to the true God through their altar to the unknown god (17:23). They are not ready. They must repent.
As Jesus said in Luke 24:47, from the time of the resurrection onward, “repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations.” What is to be preached is that through confessing the name of Jesus sins can be forgiven. This was not known before, because Jesus was not here before. But now the times of ignorance are over. Jesus has brought the purposes of God to fulfillment. “All the promises of God find their Yes in [Christ]” (2 Cor. 1:20). At his throne every knee will bow (Phil. 2:10). Therefore, henceforth he is the focus of saving faith. He is now openly installed and declared as Judge, and he alone can receive the appeals for acquittal.
What then are we saying so far? We are saying that the coming of Jesus Christ into the world is an event of such stupendous proportions that a change has occurred in the necessary focus of saving faith. Before Jesus’ coming, saving faith reposed in the forgiving and helping mercy of God displayed in events such as the exodus and in the sacrificial offerings and in prophetic promises such as Isaiah 53. Jesus was not known. The mystery that the nations would be fully included through the preaching of his name was kept secret for ages. Those were times of ignorance. God let the nations go their own way.
But “now”—a key word in the turning of God’s historic work of redemption— something new has happened. The Son of God has appeared. He has revealed the Father. He has atoned for sin. He has risen from the dead. His authority as universal Judge has been vindicated. And the message of his saving work is to be spread to all peoples. This turn in redemptive history is for the glory of Jesus Christ. Its aim is to put him at the center of all God’s saving work. Therefore, it accords with this purpose that henceforth Christ be the sole and necessary focus of saving faith. Apart from a knowledge of him, none who has the physical ability to know him will be saved.27
This tremendously important turn in redemptive history from the times of ignorance and the hiddenness of the mystery of Christ is not taken seriously enough by those who say people can be saved today who d
o not know Christ because people were saved in the Old Testament who did not know Christ. For example, Millard Erickson argues this way but does not reckon seriously enough with the tremendous significance that the New Testament sees in the historical turning point of the incarnation, which ended the times of ignorance and manifested the mystery of Christ.
If Jews possessed salvation in the Old Testament era simply by virtue of having the form of the Christian gospel without its content, can this principle be extended? Could it be that those who ever since the time of Christ have had no opportunity to hear the gospel, as it has come through the special revelation, participate in this salvation on the same basis?28
This would perhaps be a valid argument if the New Testament did not teach that the coming of Christ was a decisive turn in redemptive history that henceforth makes him the focus of all saving faith.
But is this conclusion supported by other New Testament teaching? What about the case of Cornelius? Was he not a Gentile, living after the resurrection of Christ and saved through his genuine piety without focusing his faith on Christ?
THE CASE OF CORNELIUS, ACTS 10:1–11:18
The story of Cornelius the Gentile centurion could lead some to believe that a man can be saved today apart from knowing the gospel and just by fearing God and doing the good that he can.
Cornelius is described as a “devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God” (10:2). On one occasion an angel says to him, “Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter” (10:31–32).
Meanwhile, the apostle Peter has had a vision from the Lord designed to teach him that the ceremonial uncleanness of the Gentiles is not a hindrance to their acceptance by God. A voice said to Peter, “What God has made clean, do not call common” (10:15).