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We are already acquainted with the fact that the mystery as revealed in Ephesians
and Colossians is said to have been "hidden" from ages and generations (Col. 1: 26;
Eph. 3: 9), and that the very life of the members of the one body is said to be "hid" with
Christ in God, so that a hope "laid up" as a talent in a napkin is in harmony with a life
"hid" and a mystery hitherto unrevealed.
This hope is laid up "in heaven". In one sense this is true of all blessings, for "every
good and every perfect gift cometh from above", but it is not true that every blessing will
be enjoyed "in heaven". Some will be enjoyed on earth, and some in the new Jerusalem.
Those blessings that are not only heavenly in character, but which can only be enjoyed
"in the heavenly places far above all", are those which pertain to the high calling of the
mystery.
This special hope was made known to the Colossians by "the word of the truth of the
gospel", an expression so in line with Eph. 1: 13 as to be an intentional reference to the
same thing. Let us put them together:--
"Who had a prior hope in Christ, in Whom, ye also, upon hearing THE WORD OF
TRUTH, THE GOSPEL of your salvation . . . . . having believed, were sealed with the
holy spirit of promise."
"For the hope that is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in THE
WORD OF THE TRUTH OF THE GOSPEL which . . . . . bringeth forth fruit . . . . . your
love in the spirit."
This gospel had come unto the Colossians and all the world. The word "come" does
not imply that when the apostle wrote these words the gospel referred to had actually
been preached "in all the world". The word "come" is parontos, a participle of the verb
pareimi, "to be beside", which also supplies us with the more familiar parousia, which
means the actual, personal, presence of the Lord.
Peter, it will be remembered, emphasized that which he called "present truth" in
II Pet. 1: 12, which had in view the coming of the Lord as the day-star of Old Testament
prophecy (II Pet. 1: 16-21). That phase of truth was "present", or, as we sometimes say,
"obtained", for the dispersion for whom he wrote. In the same sense the "laid up" hope
of the mystery was "present", or "obtained", for those to whom Paul ministers in these
prison epistles. This is "the present truth" for us, and just as Peter prayed that his hearers
might be established in the present truth, so Paul prayed also (Col. 1: 28, 2: 13). What
we do well to remember is that a redeemed Israelite, called under the dispensation
ministered by Peter, could not be "established" in truth that belonged to members of the
one body; it would not be present truth to him. And just in the same way, the members
of the one body cannot be established in truth outside that which is present to them, but
only in that which has to do with the high calling of the mystery.
The apostle expands this idea of "present truth" a little later in the same chapter. After
claiming the ministry of the one body as something very exclusively his own by reason of
a dispensation given to him by God, "even the mystery" hitherto hidden from ages and
generations, he proceeds:--