With the addition of the word "one" the change is found indicated in 2: 18, "Access

to the Father in One Spirit", and again in 2: 22, an habitation of God in Spirit". In

chapter 3: the apostle pursues the theme of the change of dispensation. The inspiration

of Scripture or of apostles is extraneous to the subject. Consequently, as we are free to

choose, we feel that 3: 6 must commence with the words "In spirit". This is the

essential condition of blessing in this dispensation. The blessings themselves are "all

spiritual" and can only be received by those who are "in spirit".

In the next place we pause to note the class who are spoken of as being thus blessed in

spirit. It is usual for the words to be added, at least mentally, to make the verse read,

"That the Gentiles together with the Jews should be fellow-heirs, etc.", but this idea is

unwarranted. If for the moment we concede that the Jew is in view, the teaching then

must be accepted as a veritable revelation of an hitherto hidden mystery, for where, since

the call of Abraham to the writing of the epistle to the Romans (where the apostle says

"the Jew first", etc.), has the Gentile ever received the threefold equality revealed here.

Millennial blessings, which fulfils the promises to Israel, necessarily give the blessed

Gentile a secondary place; they who were once aliens to the commonwealth of Israel, but

who are finally blessed under the covenant of promise, are nevertheless "tail" and not

"head", and their national distinctions remain. Here, in the dispensation of the Mystery,

the sphere is "in spirit" and the equality is concerning the Gentiles. The only place that a

Jew can have here is to lose his nationality and enter this unity as a sinner saved by grace,

even as the Gentile did.

The threefold equality of this new sphere must now be noted:--

In each case the word commences with su which means "with". The best word in

English to fit the three statements is the word "joint". We can say "joint-heirs", a

"joint-body", and "joint-partakers".

In Heb. 11: 9 we read of Isaac and Jacob who sojourned with Abraham as "heirs with

him of the same promise".

God does not call Himself merely the God of Abraham, or the God of Abraham and

Isaac. His full title in this connection is "The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob". They

were co-heirs. In I Pet. 3: 7 the husband, though recognizing his wife as a "weaker

vessel", is nevertheless enjoined to remember that they were both "heirs together of the

grace of life". The equality among all believers in the dispensation of the Mystery is

expressed in similar terms. Co-heirs. This inheritance is the subject of Eph. 1: 11 & 18,

and of Col. 1: 12. It is a predestined allotment, it is "in the light".

The joint-body (sussōma) is as unique as is the word used to express it. The word

occurs nowhere else in the N.T. or in the 70: Words arise in response to needs, and

never before in all the varied ways of God with man had there been the necessity for such