And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near,
How did He do it? How did He do both, in the 33 years he spent on earth? I mean, Jesus, how did He preach to those who are afar off and those who are near?
The point is that everyone who needs to hear the gospel has heard it in Him.
Not only are we chosen in Him before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4), something you cannot remember because it was before your time,
And not only did you die in Christ (Romans 6:3–4; Galatians 2:20), something you were not aware of because you were not there,
And God raised you up in Christ (Ephesians 2:5–6), something you are not aware of because, again, you were not born, nor were you there by any stretch of the imagination.
And in a mystical way, you are now raised with Christ and seated with Him in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6; Colossians 3:1), regardless of how you feel.
If you hear the word cultic with regard to the Christian religion, we are talking about rites like the drinking of the blood of Jesus and the eating of His flesh, the laying on of hands. Things that make no sense except for the meaning they are imbued with by us Christians, the practitioners.
And then there are mystical realities, things that are true right now, but there may be no way to prove them in a lab.
In that second category of mystical are all those things about our union with Christ in His death, resurrection, ascension, and His place seated now at the right hand of the Father.
All those things are mystical. He actually (factual, not mythical [not made up stories]) died, actually rose up, but the idea of your union with him, the billions of Christians in him in those times, is mystical.
That it is mystical does not make it unreal. But until the preaching of people like Paul, even angels were not aware of the depth of the work of salvation that God conceived within Himself. Even prophets of old who spoke about it did not fully know what they were speaking about (1 Peter 1:10–12).
Now, Paul dropped this truth bomb about Jesus coming and preaching to those who are near and those who are afar. How should I take that?
I take it that the message that His coming represents, somehow, we have heard, and that is why, in a way, those who hear and believe have a radically different response to the message because, in my estimation, they have already heard it before in the spirit, in Christ, by His coming.
So we have another hidden gem regarding the importance of His coming: He preached to those near and far.
What did He preach? He preached peace. He came and preached peace. That's why He could say it is finished (John 19:30). In a mystical way, He preached and all heard, but it was in a mysterious way.
So does that mean we should not preach? No. Far from it. It just gives you rest as you preach that those who have already heard from God will hear you.
“It is written in the prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who hears and learns from the Father comes to Me.”
Also,
Everyone whom the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never send away.
And,
When the Gentiles heard this, they began to rejoice and praise the word of the Lord, and all who had been appointed for eternal life believed.
Part of the mystery is that those of us who have believed get to preach to others; those who have been seeded with the truth get to seed others with the truth, making the parable of the kingdom of God as a yeast, as a seed, etc., come to pass: an ever-increasing spread
In that case, we are partners with God, who has already reconciled the world to Himself in Christ Jesus and at the same time given us the ministry of reconciliation.
And all these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and who has given us the ministry of reconciliation. In other words, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s trespasses against them, and he has given us the message of reconciliation.
So God already reconciled the world, and He now gives us the ministry of reconciliation. He already preached to those far and near, and He says go preach (Matthew 28:18-20). So your job is easy because everyone who has heard Jesus will hear you.
That is why, at intervals, Paul would exclaim how amazing God is (Romans 11:33–36).
Halleluyah!