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Articles 2018-2020
Satan hates the authentic gospel of Christ and will seek to undermine it every chance he gets. Not long after Paul and Barnabas had preached Christ among the Galatians, men came in among the new believers destabilizing their faith. One tactic they used was to raise questions about Paul. How valid was his apostleship? And how could he possibly compare with men who Jesus had personally trained while He was on earth?
For example, Peter had been with the Lord from the beginning and was now a recognized apostle in the church at Jerusalem. Where was Paul from? Raised in Tarsus, a Gentile city? Really? And, then sent out from a church in the Syrian city of Antioch? Does it not seem obvious that those who came from the Jerusalem church’s sphere of influence should carry greater authority?
But it is not who an apostle knows, who he is connected to relationally, that determines his authenticity or his authority but whether Christ has personally called him and then sent him to others as His own emissary. From the very first verse of his letter, Paul was clear.
Paul, an apostle (not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead), and all the brethren who are with me, to the churches of Galatia:
(Galatians 1:1 - 2 NASB[5])
Since he was an apostle of Christ, Paul was not sent from men but from the Lord Himself; he was His representative. Nor were other believers the key agents in his being sent. A quick study of the Greek words used in Acts Chapter 13 reveals that the prophets and teachers in Antioch recognized God’s call on Barnabas and Paul and then together with the church released them in the timing of the Lord. But it was the Holy Spirit who actually sent them.
Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away (Greek, APOLUO – to release). So, being sent out (Greek, EKPEMPO – to send away) by the Holy Spirit…
God was sending these men on a mission. Authentic Christianity has to do with recognizing what He is doing and then cooperating with Him.
One difficulty we have is that the Lord’s work is always greater than what we can see at any one time. For example, it was spiritually healthy for the apostles in Jerusalem when God raised up Paul as an apostle of Christ in a region beyond their immediate sphere of influence. God was increasing apostolic ministry among His people. But one question that then surfaced was whether Paul’s apostleship was in any way inferior to that of the twelve, the apostles who the Lord began to train when He was on earth.[6]
The answer is that since Christ’s ascension was a progression in God’s work among men and not a digression, His work from heaven would in no way be less effective or less powerful than when He was on earth.
But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.
Christ’s work on earth became the foundation of His plan to fill the earth with His glory. And it is His presence from heaven now in us through the power of the Holy Spirit that has brought to us an abiding hope of the greater glory yet to come (Colossians 1:27). In fact, the Old Testament prophets prophesied of the salvation through grace that would come to us and predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow (1Peter 1:10 - 11). Those glories still emerging among us on earth are directly and specifically related to Christ’s ascension. In fact, He ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things (Ephesians 4:10). Talk about an all-encompassing plan! And in order to facilitate it, when He had sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, He gave (along with the other ministries) some apostles…
Some would say that He had already given the twelve apostles of the Lamb as gifts to His people at an earlier time. In what is called The Great Commission, He had told them to go and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19). But since this event took place in Galilee, Matthew was not recounting Christ’s parting words. It was later outside of Jerusalem at the Mount of Olives that the Lord gave more clarity. His word to all nations was to be proclaimed ...beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47). And they were not to leave the city until He had ascended and poured out the promised Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4). It was then after they received power from on high that they would be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8).
Again, His ascension was the precipitating event that facilitated Christ giving apostles, prophets, and the other ministries to His people. To see Paul’s apostleship as in any way less powerful or authoritative than that of the twelve because his arrival on the scene was later than theirs misjudges the grace that Jesus released. Like theirs, his being given to the Church as an apostle was rooted in Christ’s ascension.
This is not to say that the twelve apostles of the Lamb were not special and unique in the plan of God. Indeed, they were. Christ had called them each by name while He was on earth. He had taught them, exhorted them, admonished them, and sent them out on short mission-trips to proclaim to Israel that God’s kingdom had broken into human history. Then along with many others (1Corinthians 15:6), they were privileged to be eyewitnesses of His resurrection. Of course, since Judas had betrayed the Lord, and since their number was incomplete at eleven, God gave Matthias the privilege of bearing witness to Christ’s resurrection as a member of that special group (Acts 1:15 - 26). To further clarify their unique place in His purpose, the Lord showed John in the Book of Revelation that the twelve were foundational to the wall surrounding His city. Since the wall could not be for protection (the city’s gates are open continually – Revelation 21:25), its presence must be to give clarity to the city’s identity. The wall makes distinction between what is the New Jerusalem and what is not. Indeed, God’s purpose of establishing Heaven’s city among men came into greater definition, greater clarity because of the ministries of the twelve. Their lives (Matthias’ included) were foundational to this purpose.
And so, after His ascension Christ’s ongoing construction proceeded from heaven on earth as He continued to give apostles, prophets, and the other ministries for the purpose of serving His people.
And among them all, like the twelve, Paul was unique. Unlike the rest of us, the gospel he preached came directly from Heaven without the twelve or other believing teachers being involved (Galatians 1:12, 16 - 17). Since in the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact is confirmed, it seems that God wanted two witnesses – first, the twelve and then Paul though whom He could sovereignly disclose Heaven’s truth. Jesus’ personal revelation of Himself to Paul was as uniquely powerful and authoritative as it had been to Peter, Matthew, John, etc.
And the Galatian believers had been the recipients of God’s strategy.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen.
If God’s work among the nations was to be seen as authored from Heaven, His people would have to submit to His process of rescuing them from this present evil age. While it is true that we have already been delivered from the eternal destructions coming upon the wicked, we are still being set free from certain ideas, influences, and attitudes of the society around us. In other words, we are still learning and coming into alignment with the ways of Heaven. To the degree that we respond to His work (and it will require the input of authentic New Testament apostles and prophets to help us), Heaven’s city will begin to shine with the distinctiveness that God intends.
Notice the Lord Jesus’ commitment to His project. He gave Himself for our sins. What an exchange. We got Him; He took our sins. He took them upon Himself and broke sin’s power through His death and resurrection. The resulting evidence of His strategy can be seen in the Book of Acts as an emerging people stood out among the peoples of the earth expressing the humility, priorities, and wisdom of Heaven. Here was a distinctiveness first coming into focus through the lives and ministries of the twelve apostles of the Lamb and then brought into further clarity through the apostle Paul. The city from Heaven was now clearly under construction.
But Satan opposed God’s work then, and he continues to do so today.
I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
The greatest danger we face is not from those who proclaim a totally different lord and messiah; it is from those who proclaim the Lord Jesus in a way that distorts the truth. Men had come in among the Galatians teaching that along with believing in Jesus, they had to keep the Law of Moses in order to be saved. To see how this error affected Paul, note the strong language he used.
But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!
These false teachers were distorting the gospel of Christ (vs.7). By teaching that the Galatians had to keep the Law of Moses as a requirement for salvation, they were both drawing attention from and then diminishing in the minds of the believers the all-sufficiency and the glory of Christ. And though He had given Himself for and to the Galatians, because they were now turning to their own religious works, they were deserting Him.
And in our own day, our message is the gospel of the glory of Christ (2Corinthians 4:4). Anything in our lives and ministries that draws attention from Him must be circumcised from our hearts and removed.
Donald Rumble – April 2019
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