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Romans 16:25-26   Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes from faith – to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.

I can’t help feeling some of the joy and excitement that would have been filling Paul’s heart as he wrote (or at least dictated to Tertius – verse 22) these concluding words to the believers in Rome who would have consisted of both Jews and Gentiles.

This was Paul, the Jewish Pharisee, brought up under all the strict traditions and dogma of Judaism, who, on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians, had been confronted personally by the Risen Lord Jesus Christ, and had his blind spiritual eyes opened by the “[Creator] God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’” and who “made his light shine in [his] heart[s] to give [him] the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

This man’s Scriptures (that he had studied diligently and meditated on intellectually) suddenly burst with brilliant, penetrating light, because he saw, for the first time, that they all pointed to Jesus, the crucified Messiah, and, amazingly, it all now made sense to him!

“The revelation of [a] mystery hidden for long ages past”!  Now, the somewhat strange ‘prophetic writings’, like Isaiah’s foreshadowing of a ‘Suffering Servant’ Messiah (Isaiah 53), and his foreshadowing of the Covenant God of Israel actually saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance”  (Isaiah 19:25), all fell into place.

Christians should really get more excited and enthusiastic about the value and importance of the Old Testament as a key to the Gospel and the Person and Work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and about the blessing that can come from Jewish evangelism.

– Bruce Christian