Gospel of The Mystery
...and to make all men see what is the Dispensation of the Mystery which for ages hath been hid in God who created all things. - Eph. 3:9
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. - 2 Tim. 2:15
All Spiritual Blessings
An excerpt from The Grapes of Eschol by Charles H. Welch
Shared by Deborah Earnest
Writing to the believer before the great dispensational landmark of Acts 28, Paul speaks of ‘the blessing of Abraham’ coming on the Gentiles, but Abraham is never mentioned in the ‘Prison Epistles’, and no blessing of Abraham is associated either with ‘heavenly places’ or ‘before the foundation of the world’. There are some terms used in the Scriptures, which by their very nature and the place they occupy in the scheme of salvation, come over and over again in the writings of the apostle. Such terms as ‘faith’, ‘redemption’, ‘justification’ will come to the mind immediately, and are found in many of the epistles whether written before or after Acts 28. No one moreover could deny the use of the word ‘blessing’ when speaking of these great doctrines of salvation, yet the fact remains that Romans 15:29 ‘the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ’, 1 Corinthians 10:16 ‘the cup of blessing which we bless’ and Galatians 3:14 ‘the blessing of Abraham’ are the only other occurrences of the word in Paul’s epistles. So far as the Prison Epistles are concerned Ephesians 1:3 stands alone, the word ‘blessing’ meeting us in the very opening words of the new revelation and never again employed in any capacity by the apostle. Terms such as ‘seated together’ and ‘blessing’ receive emphasis by their glorious solitariness. They stand alone and are beyond compare.
Green, in his handbook says that where the adjective pas ‘all’ in the singular number is written without the article ‘the’, it signifies ‘every’, but with the article it means ‘the whole of’ the object which it qualifies. Thus pasa polis means ‘every city’; pasa he polis or he pasa polis ‘the whole city’ and he polis pasa would have a slightly different meaning - either ‘the city, all of it’ or ‘the city in every part’.
The church of the one body is blessed ‘with every blessing that is spiritual’. This is even wider in its scope than to say ‘all spiritual blessings’, for if the number of the blessings were but few - say four, they could still be defined as ‘all spiritual’, whereas the mind reels as it endeavours to grasp the fact that there is no blessing that comes under the category of ‘spiritual’ that is omitted. It is highly improbable, that, while we are in this life, we shall be able to appreciate a tithe of what is here so freely bestowed.
In complete contrast with the spiritual blessings of the Mystery, are the ‘carnal’ or ‘natural’ blessings of the law.
‘Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field ... blessed shall be thy basket and thy store ... the LORD shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses ... the LORD shall make thee plenteous in goods ...’ (Deut. 28:1-11).
‘Blessed is every one that feareth the LORD; that walketh in His ways. For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table’. (Psa. 128:1-3).
How completely opposite all this is from the experience of the believer under the dispensation of grace. Like Paul, he may know what it is to suffer need, to be in want, to know what it is to be continually in trouble. He will have no guarantee of a settled dwelling-place, he has no promise of special protection during periods of danger, his ‘basket and store’ may show impoverishment, while the ungodly may appear to prosper. It would be foolish to assess a man’s spiritual worth today by the size of his bank balance, or any other material standard. Ephesians 1:3 does not speak of daily bread, of dwelling-place, of home comforts or of business success. It visualizes a new plane, the spiritual, which is on resurrection ground. The earnest of our inheritance is not a bunch of grapes as it was when the spies returned with the grapes of Eshcol, neither are our enemies men of flesh and blood, but they are spiritual Canaanites, principalities and powers.