188 sigurd grindheim
the purpose of the law, Paul refers to an earlier time in salvation history
(“before faith came,” 3:23) and to the new era that is inaugurated with the
coming of Christ (“now that faith has come,” 3:25). in gal 4:6, Paul applies
the consequences of this new era to his galatian audience: they are god’s
children, having received the spirit of god. this newfound state is then
again contrasted, not with an earlier stage in salvation history, but with
the earlier condition of Paul’s gentile audience: “when you did not know
god, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods” (4:8). the
perspective is very similar to that of eph 2:11–22. the before and now of
the believers’ lives parallel the before and now of salvation history.
A Later Mystery?
in ephesians, the present time is characterized by the revelation of the
mystery that was previously not made known (eph 3:4–5). “Mystery” is an
important concept both in Colossians and in ephesians. in Col 1:26–27,
the mystery refers to the indwelling of Christ in the gentile believers. in
eph 3:4–6, this mystery is more specifically that “the gentiles have become
fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in
Christ Jesus through the gospel.” Compared to 1 Cor 2:7, the term “mys-
tery” now has a more distinctively ecclesiological focus. that the inclusion
of the gentiles was the goal of the revelation of the mystery is also clear
from rom 16:25–26. however, Colossians and, more clearly, ephesians go
a step further by identifying the mystery with this inclusion.32 Many schol-
ars maintain, therefore, that this a departure from the theology of Paul.
in Paul, ecclesiology is determined by Christology, whereas in ephesians
it is the other way around: Christology is interpreted from the standpoint
of ecclesiology.33 that is why the inclusion of the gentiles now can be
understood as an adequate definition of the gospel.
it should be noted, however, that the mystery in eph 3:5–6 is only
one element of the mystery that ephesians introduces in the letter’s
32 J. armitage robinson stresses the continuity too much when he concludes that the
use of the term in Colossians and ephesians is “no new one” (St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephe-
sians [2nd ed.; london: Macmillan, 1904], 238).
33 ernst Käsemann, “das interpretationsproblem des epheserbriefes,” in Exegetische
Versuche und Besinnungen (2nd ed.; göttingen: Vandenhoeck & ruprecht, 1965), 2:254–55.
Cf. Kümmel, Introduction, 360; hübner, Kolosser, Epheser, an Philemon, 275–76. similarly,
Michael gese maintains that the immediate connection between the reconciliation in the
salvation event and the establishment of the church is an alien thought for Paul (Das
Vermächtnis, 132–39). note, however, that M.-É. Boismard, who takes ephesians to be a
redaction of an earlier letter by Paul, believes that eph 2:14–18 is a part of the original let-
ter, since the reconciliation theme is “très paulinien” (Éphésiens, 100).