The Word from Paul – Part 2
Bible Study Time 5-27-07
Bible Study Time 5-27-07
In Acts, Chapter 6, the apostles set a priority upon prayer and the ministry of the word. Seven men were selected to help with the distribution of food to the assembly of believers so that the apostles could give themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
In the Old Testament times, prophets would speak to the people on God’s behalf. When they spoke, they would say, “Thus says the Lord.”
When Jesus came, He did not say, “Thus says the Lord” for He was the “logos,” or the very expression of God. The Apostle John called Him the Word and said:
John 1:14 (NKJ)
14 . . . the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
After Christ’s ascension into heaven, the apostles focused on teaching the proper interpretation of the Old Testament scriptures because it was the scriptures that gave the evidence which proved that Jesus was the promised Messiah of the Jews.
Jesus was born of a virgin in Bethlehem. He was a descendant of King David. He was despised and rejected. He was beaten. His hands and His feet were pierced, and the Roman soldiers cast lots for His garments. Jesus had fulfilled all of these prophesies.
After the Apostle Paul got saved, he too went to the Jewish synagogue to preach the good news that Jesus was the Messiah and that He was waiting in heaven for Israel to accept Him as their Messiah. Paul was confident that when Israel accepted Jesus as their Messiah, Jesus would return to the earth to establish the kingdom.
Paul’s letter to the Romans was Paul’s last epistle of the time period covered by the book of Acts. By that time many Gentiles had accepted Christ as their Savior, but even at that late date Paul was anticipating the conversion of the nation of Israel and the kingdom of the New Covenant. In Romans 10 and 11, Paul wrote to the Gentiles and said:
Romans 10:1-3 (NKJ)
1 Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.
2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
3 For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.
Romans 11:1-2 (NKJ)
1 I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
2 God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew . . .
Romans 11:13-14 (NKJ)
13 . . . I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry,
14 if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them.
Romans 11:25-27 (NKJ)
25 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
27 For this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins."
Well, God never promised to take away Israel’s sin by the power of the Old Covenant Law, but He had promised through Jeremiah and Ezekiel that He would cleanse Israel of her sin through the power of the New Covenant. Ezekiel said:
Ezekiel 36:26-29 (NKJ)
26 "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
27 "I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
28 "Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God.
29 "I will deliver you from all your uncleanness . . .
Ezekiel 37:26 (NKJ)
26 "Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore.
Jeremiah said:
Jeremiah 31:31-33 (NKJ)
31 "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah--
32 "not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD.
33 "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
This New Covenant promised Israel a clean heart through the power of the Holy Spirit. Ezekiel said that when that happens, God will set his tabernacle in the midst of the children of Israel. Jeremiah said that when that happens:
Jeremiah 31:34 (NKJ)
34 "No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."
The earthly kingdom of the New Covenant was always in the back of Paul’s mind as He went out preaching to the Gentiles during the Acts period. In Romans, Chapter 8, Paul said:
Romans 8:18-23 (NKJ)
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
19 For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.
20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope;
21 because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.
23 Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.
Paul delineated a progressive redemption. First would come the redemption of the souls of believers, then the redemption of their bodies. By this the Sons of God will be revealed. Then will come the redemption of the earth, and even the creation knows that it will not be redeemed until after the Sons of God have been revealed.
These were things that were all predicted in the Old Testament, and that’s why Paul quoted from so many Old Testament passages during this phase of his ministry. As I mentioned last week, Paul referred to over 70 Old Testament passages in the book of Romans alone.
Paul taught the New Covenant and its kingdom in his second letter to the Corinthians, saying:
2 Corinthians 3:5-6 (NKJ)
5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,
6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
The Corinthian believers knew that when Paul spoke of the New Covenant, he was anticipating the kingdom of the New Covenant. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul had encouraged them to judge for themselves the issues that would arise among them because, he said, someday soon you will judge the world. He said that the form of this world is passing away.
In Galatians, Chapter 4, Paul went to the New Covenant to confirm his doctrine of salvation by faith apart from the works of the Old Covenant Law. He said that Hagar was a picture of the Old Covenant of Law while Sarah was a picture of New Covenant grace. He pointed out that Hagar and her son, Ishmael, had been cast out because the inheritance of God would go only to those who receive it by grace through faith.
Paul insisted that this doctrine of salvation by grace had been given to Him by the Lord Jesus. He said:
Galatians 1:11-12 (NKJ)
11 . . . I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.
12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Some Bible students are confused by the fact that Paul called this revelation a mystery. In Paul’s salutation to the Romans, he said:
Romans 16:25-26 (NKJ)
25 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began
26 but now has been made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures has been made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith--
This mystery concerning salvation by grace through faith was being made known by the prophetic Scriptures. Therefore, it had to have been hidden in the scriptures, but it was hidden so well that Paul could say that it was a mystery which had been kept secret since the world began.”
This mystery stands in contrast to the mystery which Paul revealed in his prison epistles to the Ephesians, the Colossians and the Philippians. In these letters, Paul revealed the mystery concerning the Church which is the Body of Christ. Paul said that this mystery was a mystery which had not even been hinted at in the Old Testament. In Ephesians 3, Paul said:
Ephesians 3:8-9 (NKJ)
8 To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,
9 and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ;
Paul says that this mystery was not hidden in the Old Testament scriptures, but it was hidden in God from the beginning of the ages. Paul said that this mystery was a mystery:
Ephesians 3:5 (NKJ)
5 which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets:
This mystery had been revealed to Paul, and Paul was charged with revealing it to all men, including the other apostles and prophets.
Well, what exactly was this mystery? It was the mystery concerning the church of our present age, the Church which is the Body of Christ. In this church the Gentiles are fellow heirs and of the same body with the Jews. Jews and Gentiles now come to God without distinction as equal participants in the blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Paul confirms this mystery of the Church which is the body of Christ in the first chapter of Colossians, where he says:
Colossians 1:24-26 (NKJ)
24 I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church,
25 of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God,
26 the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.
Here Paul says that the mystery concerning the Church which is the Body of Christ was revealed to him as a special stewardship of truth. He was charged with getting out the word to complete the word of God.
In the prison epistles of Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians, Paul never once referred to Abraham. He never once referred to Israel’s New Covenant. Rather than emphasizing the redemption of the earth as he did in Romans, Chapter 8, he now said that members of the Church, the Body of Christ, should set their affections on things above and not on the things of the earth. He said that our citizenship is in heaven for we have been raised up to sit with Christ in the heavenly places where we have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ.
It’s obvious then that if we are have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, we have to conclude that we now enjoy all of the spiritual blessings of the Old Covenant and all of the spiritual blessings of the New Covenant. It’s just the things that relate to this earth that don’t belong to us.
We are saved by God’s grace apart from the works of the Law, and we have been made new creations in Christ just like the kingdom saints of the Acts period. After all, it was in Ephesians that Paul said:
Ephesians 2:8-10 (KJV)
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
All of the spiritual blessings of Israel’s covenants flow through to us today. That’s why all scripture is profitable for us today. We can claim all spiritual blessings as our own, but of course, the richest spiritual blessings of the ages belong to us. If you don’t believe that, just review the blessings of Ephesians, Chapter 1, and see if you don’t agree that God has blessed us exceedingly, abundantly above all that we could ask or think.
Thank you for listening to Bible Study Time. It’s been a pleasure studying with you, and I’ll look forward to studying with you again next week at this same time.
Church links:
In the Old Testament times, prophets would speak to the people on God’s behalf. When they spoke, they would say, “Thus says the Lord.”
When Jesus came, He did not say, “Thus says the Lord” for He was the “logos,” or the very expression of God. The Apostle John called Him the Word and said:
John 1:14 (NKJ)
14 . . . the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
After Christ’s ascension into heaven, the apostles focused on teaching the proper interpretation of the Old Testament scriptures because it was the scriptures that gave the evidence which proved that Jesus was the promised Messiah of the Jews.
Jesus was born of a virgin in Bethlehem. He was a descendant of King David. He was despised and rejected. He was beaten. His hands and His feet were pierced, and the Roman soldiers cast lots for His garments. Jesus had fulfilled all of these prophesies.
After the Apostle Paul got saved, he too went to the Jewish synagogue to preach the good news that Jesus was the Messiah and that He was waiting in heaven for Israel to accept Him as their Messiah. Paul was confident that when Israel accepted Jesus as their Messiah, Jesus would return to the earth to establish the kingdom.
Paul’s letter to the Romans was Paul’s last epistle of the time period covered by the book of Acts. By that time many Gentiles had accepted Christ as their Savior, but even at that late date Paul was anticipating the conversion of the nation of Israel and the kingdom of the New Covenant. In Romans 10 and 11, Paul wrote to the Gentiles and said:
Romans 10:1-3 (NKJ)
1 Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.
2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
3 For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.
Romans 11:1-2 (NKJ)
1 I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
2 God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew . . .
Romans 11:13-14 (NKJ)
13 . . . I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry,
14 if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them.
Romans 11:25-27 (NKJ)
25 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
27 For this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins."
Well, God never promised to take away Israel’s sin by the power of the Old Covenant Law, but He had promised through Jeremiah and Ezekiel that He would cleanse Israel of her sin through the power of the New Covenant. Ezekiel said:
Ezekiel 36:26-29 (NKJ)
26 "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
27 "I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
28 "Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God.
29 "I will deliver you from all your uncleanness . . .
Ezekiel 37:26 (NKJ)
26 "Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore.
Jeremiah said:
Jeremiah 31:31-33 (NKJ)
31 "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah--
32 "not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD.
33 "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
This New Covenant promised Israel a clean heart through the power of the Holy Spirit. Ezekiel said that when that happens, God will set his tabernacle in the midst of the children of Israel. Jeremiah said that when that happens:
Jeremiah 31:34 (NKJ)
34 "No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."
The earthly kingdom of the New Covenant was always in the back of Paul’s mind as He went out preaching to the Gentiles during the Acts period. In Romans, Chapter 8, Paul said:
Romans 8:18-23 (NKJ)
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
19 For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.
20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope;
21 because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.
23 Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.
Paul delineated a progressive redemption. First would come the redemption of the souls of believers, then the redemption of their bodies. By this the Sons of God will be revealed. Then will come the redemption of the earth, and even the creation knows that it will not be redeemed until after the Sons of God have been revealed.
These were things that were all predicted in the Old Testament, and that’s why Paul quoted from so many Old Testament passages during this phase of his ministry. As I mentioned last week, Paul referred to over 70 Old Testament passages in the book of Romans alone.
Paul taught the New Covenant and its kingdom in his second letter to the Corinthians, saying:
2 Corinthians 3:5-6 (NKJ)
5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,
6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
The Corinthian believers knew that when Paul spoke of the New Covenant, he was anticipating the kingdom of the New Covenant. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul had encouraged them to judge for themselves the issues that would arise among them because, he said, someday soon you will judge the world. He said that the form of this world is passing away.
In Galatians, Chapter 4, Paul went to the New Covenant to confirm his doctrine of salvation by faith apart from the works of the Old Covenant Law. He said that Hagar was a picture of the Old Covenant of Law while Sarah was a picture of New Covenant grace. He pointed out that Hagar and her son, Ishmael, had been cast out because the inheritance of God would go only to those who receive it by grace through faith.
Paul insisted that this doctrine of salvation by grace had been given to Him by the Lord Jesus. He said:
Galatians 1:11-12 (NKJ)
11 . . . I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.
12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Some Bible students are confused by the fact that Paul called this revelation a mystery. In Paul’s salutation to the Romans, he said:
Romans 16:25-26 (NKJ)
25 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began
26 but now has been made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures has been made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith--
This mystery concerning salvation by grace through faith was being made known by the prophetic Scriptures. Therefore, it had to have been hidden in the scriptures, but it was hidden so well that Paul could say that it was a mystery which had been kept secret since the world began.”
This mystery stands in contrast to the mystery which Paul revealed in his prison epistles to the Ephesians, the Colossians and the Philippians. In these letters, Paul revealed the mystery concerning the Church which is the Body of Christ. Paul said that this mystery was a mystery which had not even been hinted at in the Old Testament. In Ephesians 3, Paul said:
Ephesians 3:8-9 (NKJ)
8 To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,
9 and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ;
Paul says that this mystery was not hidden in the Old Testament scriptures, but it was hidden in God from the beginning of the ages. Paul said that this mystery was a mystery:
Ephesians 3:5 (NKJ)
5 which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets:
This mystery had been revealed to Paul, and Paul was charged with revealing it to all men, including the other apostles and prophets.
Well, what exactly was this mystery? It was the mystery concerning the church of our present age, the Church which is the Body of Christ. In this church the Gentiles are fellow heirs and of the same body with the Jews. Jews and Gentiles now come to God without distinction as equal participants in the blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Paul confirms this mystery of the Church which is the body of Christ in the first chapter of Colossians, where he says:
Colossians 1:24-26 (NKJ)
24 I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church,
25 of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God,
26 the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.
Here Paul says that the mystery concerning the Church which is the Body of Christ was revealed to him as a special stewardship of truth. He was charged with getting out the word to complete the word of God.
In the prison epistles of Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians, Paul never once referred to Abraham. He never once referred to Israel’s New Covenant. Rather than emphasizing the redemption of the earth as he did in Romans, Chapter 8, he now said that members of the Church, the Body of Christ, should set their affections on things above and not on the things of the earth. He said that our citizenship is in heaven for we have been raised up to sit with Christ in the heavenly places where we have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ.
It’s obvious then that if we are have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, we have to conclude that we now enjoy all of the spiritual blessings of the Old Covenant and all of the spiritual blessings of the New Covenant. It’s just the things that relate to this earth that don’t belong to us.
We are saved by God’s grace apart from the works of the Law, and we have been made new creations in Christ just like the kingdom saints of the Acts period. After all, it was in Ephesians that Paul said:
Ephesians 2:8-10 (KJV)
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
All of the spiritual blessings of Israel’s covenants flow through to us today. That’s why all scripture is profitable for us today. We can claim all spiritual blessings as our own, but of course, the richest spiritual blessings of the ages belong to us. If you don’t believe that, just review the blessings of Ephesians, Chapter 1, and see if you don’t agree that God has blessed us exceedingly, abundantly above all that we could ask or think.
Thank you for listening to Bible Study Time. It’s been a pleasure studying with you, and I’ll look forward to studying with you again next week at this same time.
Church links:
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