PAUL’S PRISON EPISTLES AFTER THE ACTS PERIOD

[Brother Marvs]

PAUL’S PRISON EPISTLES AFTER THE ACTS PERIOD
Taken from “The Unfolding Purpose of God” by Stuart Allen

After the world disorganization and failure of the nations recorded in Genesis chapter eleven, we have one man, Abraham, and his seed picked out by God to be a channel of blessing to the whole earth. They were to be a priestly kingdom (Exod. 19:3-6), holy intermediaries between God and the nations, dispensing His laws and His truth. Although they forfeited all this under the first covenant of law, yet it is guaranteed to them under the New Covenant which is age-abiding and one of grace (Jer. 31:31-37, 32:37-42, 33:25,26; Isa. 59:20,21, 60:1-5, 11-16, 19-22, 61:5-11, 62:1-5). The Old Testament is the long historical record of their Divine preparation to fulfill this role. In the fullness of time, God sent His Son and He came to be their Saviour and King – the great King-Priest. “Behold, thy King cometh unto thee” was fulfilled (Zech. 9:9; Matt. 21:4,5), but they put Him to death on the cross of Calvary. In His infinite patience and mercy God calls the nation, through Peter’s lips, to repent and turn to Him (Acts 3:19-26) when he would send back their Messiah to them. Note again how our key text of Genesis 12:1-3 is quoted (verses 25,26) showing that it was still capable of fulfillment and was not made to Christ personally apart from the nation of Israel. Rather than this, Christ and Israel, as the seed of Abraham, are linked as one in the Divine purpose and in this was the great promise for world blessing was to be carried out. And so it was necessary for this nation to have the message first (Acts 3:26, 13:46).

Then the purpose widens and the Gentiles are brought in and saved, the assemblies thus formed being first fruits or small foreshadowings of the great time when all the world shall be blessed through Israel. The admission of the Gentile was also to stir up the Jews, still obdurate in unbelief, and provoke them to jealousy (Rom. 10:19-21, 11:11), thus seeking to wake them up from their blindness and unbelief. Peter and the eleven take the message to the Jews in the land of Palestine. Paul takes the message to the Jews living outside the land, turning to the Gentile in each place where the message was rejected by the earthly people of God. He, as well as Peter, reminds them of the truth of our key text (Gen. 12:1-3) by saying “I have set thee (Israel) to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth” (Acts 13: 46,47; Isa. 49:6).

As the history of the Acts unfolds we see no indication of Israel responding to the Divine offer of mercy and forgiveness. On the contrary they treated God’s servants spitefully and slew them (Matt. 22:5,6). Stephen is murdered. Peter and Paul are imprisoned and so the melancholy story goes on to the last chapter. Although Israel’s hope is still referred to (Acts 26: 6,7, 28:20), Paul is commissioned to pronounce spiritual blindness, deafness and hardness of heart on this sinful nation and so at last they go out into the darkness that has been their condition all though this age in which we live. From Genesis twelve to Acts twenty-eight the Jew has been in the forefront of God’s purposes; now he is laid aside temporarily in unbelief. This means that God must have some new method of dealing with mankind, otherwise the Devil would have triumphed and His plans would have been frustrated. Either He has appointed a fresh channel through which to bless all the families of the earth or He has revealed another aspect of the purpose of the ages through Christ. Only the Word of God can settle this for us. At the beginning of the Acts the word was sent to Israel alone, because of their prior place. Then as the Gentile was brought in to share Israel’s blessings we read:

“Children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the word of this salvation sent” (13:26).

At the end of this book we have:

“Be it known therefore unto you (Israel), that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it” (28:28),

that is, to the Gentile independently now of the Jewish nation.

(to be continued)