EPHESIANS: The Mystery of Salvation Revealed: "that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel!"

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles— if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you,.. (Ephesians 3:1-2) 

When Paul (then known as Saul) was converted by Christ Jesus on the Damascus Road, Christ later told a disciple, Ananias to go to Paul saying, “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.” (Acts 9:15-16) As we've studied up to this point, Paul indeed is a prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles; for he's writing this letter to the church in Ephesus from prison in Rome, where he's waiting to be seen by Caesar to speak regarding the false charges the Jews have made against him, mainly because the Jews believed, "This is the man who teaches all men everywhere against the people, the law, and this place; and furthermore he also brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.” (Acts 21:28)

What the Jews refused to believe was that the grace of God which was given to Paul was for the Gentiles also.  ...how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power. (Ephesians 3:3-7)

God had revealed to the children of Israel what Paul now refers to as the mystery. God spoke through Moses before the children of Israel went into the promised land, “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people; for He will avenge the blood of His servants, And render vengeance to His adversaries; He will provide atonement for His land and His people.” (Deuteronomy 32:43) God spoke through the prophet Isaiah and said of Christ Jesus, “Behold! My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom My soul delights! I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles. ... I, the Lord, have called You in righteousness, and will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles, To open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house. I am the Lord, that is My name; and My glory I will not give to another, nor My praise to carved images. Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.” (Isaiah 42:1, 6-9)

God was very clear that through His Servant, His Elect One, the Gentiles would have the same access to salvation as the children of Israel.  However, the children of Israel problem was that they kept holding on to the old covenant, that if a stranger wanted to be included with them, the stranger had to ...let all his males be circumcised,...; and he shall be as a native of the land. (Exodus 12:48) That's why when the Gentiles started hearing the gospel and receiving the Holy Spirit, the Jews would follow the apostles and disciples and say, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”(Acts 15:1)

The Jews wanted to hold on to the old covenant, but Jesus said, "For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20) For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. Because finding fault with them, He says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. ... In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. (Hebrews 8:7-9, 13)

And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. ...not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another— He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation. (Hebrews 8:15, 25-28)  Oh, what Christ Jesus sacrificed for ALL of us, Jews and Gentiles, by bearing the sins of many, that all who desire may receive salvation!

To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him. Therefore I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. (Ephesians 3:8-13)

What Paul's life demonstrated to us is that God can change anybody and God can use anybody to lead others to change, by the spreading of the gospel of Christ Jesus.  Paul called himself the least of all the saints, probably because he lived with the guilt of how he persecuted the church.  But he went on to be one of the greatest of all the apostles, because through him, God made sure the message of salvation went to the Gentiles throughout the known world at that time.  Because of the seeds Paul planted, the gospel message is still spreading throughout the entire world today.  Thank God for his grace and the unsearchable riches of Christ towards all of us, if we would just believe!