OUR GLORIOUS GOSPEL -Miles Stanford

The Lord Jesus, as Israel's Messiah in His pre-Cross humiliation, "went about all Galilee, teaching in their [Israel's] synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom" (Matthew 4:23). It was at this time that He sat upon the mountainside and taught His disciples the Sermon on the Mount.

The Lord Jesus Christ, after the Cross and in His ascension glory as Head and Life, ministered His "glorious Gospel of Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:4) to His Body--and He did it through Paul. "I want you to know brothers, that the Gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ." (Galatians 1:11,12). "...I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven" (Acts 26:19).

Not one of the apostles or disciples taught the Gospel of the kingdom, or any other gospel, to Paul. The "glorious Gospel of Christ," of and to the Church, had been hidden in God--it was not in any of the Scriptures--until the glorified Bridegroom presented it to His Bride, through Paul.

Dr. William R. Newell presents clearly the new-creation difference between the Lord Jesus as Messiah speaking to His earthly people, Israel, and the glorified Lord Jesus Christ as Head speaking to His heavenly Body. "He is the Head of the Body, the Church; He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead..." (Colossians 1:18).

There are two great revelators, or unfolders of Divine Truth in the Bible--Moses in the Old Testament, and Paul in the New Testament. Some may ask, "Is not Jesus the Great Teacher?" In a sense that is true, but actually He is the Person taught about, rather than teaching, in the Gospel. The Law and the prophets pointed forward to Him; the Epistles point up to Him; and the Revelation points to His second coming, and those things connected with it. The Lord Jesus Christ, therefore, is the theme of the Bible.

Unto none of the Twelve Apostles did God directly reveal the great body of doctrine for this dispensation. Just as He chose Moses to be the revelator to Israel of the Ten Commandments and all connected with the Law dispensation, so He chose Saul of Tarsus to be the unfolder of those mighty truths connected with our Lord's death, burial, resurrection and His ascended Person. And all the "mysteries," revealed to the Church in this dispensation by the Holy Spirit in the Word, are set forth by Paul. Finally, Paul is the revelator of that great company of God's elect, called the Church, the Body of Christ, which is also His Bride--members of the Lord Jesus Himself.

Paul is the glorified Lord Jesus' declarer of the Gospel to us. Take his thirteen Epistles of Romans to Philemon out of the Bible and you are bereft of Christian doctrine. If you were to take Paul's Epistles from the Word, you could not find anything about the Church, the Body of Christ, for none of the Apostles mention that Body.

You could not find the exact meaning of any of the great doctrines, such as: 1) Justification, 2) Redemption, 3) Propitiation, 4) Reconciliation, 5) Identification, or 6) Sanctification. You could not find what is perhaps the most tremendous fact of every Christian's life, that of his personal union with the Lord Jesus Christ in glory.

Saul already stood in clearer light regarding the Risen Lord than did the other apostles; for they had known Him primarily in His humiliation, and they were His messengers to Israel, of whom is Christ according to His "human ancestry" (Romans 9:5). But Paul's first vision of Christ was as the Glorified One, the Son of God, in ascension glory.

The concept of the Lord Jesus in Paul's Epistles is one of constant, unspeakable glory. We do not mean that the other apostles did not recognize the Lord Jesus as the Son of God. They had, long since (Matthew 16:16; John 1:14, etc.). But their first testimony at Jerusalem and to Israel had been more of the Messiahship and Lordship of Jesus, as the Crucified and now risen King, who was ready to return to Israel and set up His kingdom if they would repent (Acts 2:36; 3:19, etc). But Paul received his teaching all from heaven, from the Lord Jesus Christ in glory, rather than on earth in Jewish connections. Paul's glorious Gospel has nothing Jewish about it.

You can discern a man's preaching or teaching by this rule--is he Pauline? Does his doctrine start and finish according to those statements of Christian doctrine written by the glorified Lord Jesus Christ through Paul? No matter how wonderful and popular a man may seem in his gifts and apparent leadership, if his Gospel is not Pauline, it is not the Gospel; and we might as well get our minds settled once and for all as to that.

Failure or refusal to discern the Pauline Gospel as a separate and new revelation, and not a "development from Judaism," accounts for most of the confusion in many people's minds today as regards just what the Gospel is.