UNDERSTANDING PAUL, PART I
Ephesians and Colossians Have Lots
of Info, Especially What’s Concerning
the Church
UNDERSTANDING PAUL:
Ephesians and Colossians Have
Lots of Info, Especially What’s
Concerning the Church.
JAN LILLEBY
Or putting it another way, - the spiritual issues and the doctrine of faith are what gives us the right guidance on what exactly is the important advice to us believers, the Church dispensation.
Seeing those things which are kept out of it, as we compare to what is taught and preached in the four Gospels and Acts, and epistles written in the same timeline, works for us a form of guidance and sound advice!
When we count it and check out what he left out of his teachings, found in Ephesians/Colossians in comparison with other New Testament writings, this gives us spiritual guidance indeed.
It can, in some instances, be likened with a classic crime scene under a police investigation: The police detectives make notice – not only of what they find at the place of the crime – they duly notice also WHAT IS NOT THERE. They make a total review of what has really taken place there.
And in this article I shall do some focusing on what we do NOT find in Paul’s Church Epistles. It will probably wipe your spiritual windshield…so you can have a better sight of the road before you.
Paul’s deliberate keeping out certain things, is a guidance in itself, for in doing this he demonstrates that these ‘missing things’ are of no concern to the Church. His doctrine of faith stand out as a fully NEW DOCTRINE, not found with the twelve apostles seen in Acts.
THE SECOND ADVENT
The Lord’s second coming cannot be found with Paul in any of these two Church epistles. It’s just not there; suggesting that His coming is not for us, the Church. Jesus does not come to the Church, but He shall come down from heaven to Israel, so to take up His reign of the nation as their Messiah King. Instead it will be us, the Church which shall come up to Him, ref. Col. 3:1-4. “We shall be revealed with Christ in Glory”. That Glory is not here on earth, it is found in heaven (Greek: Epiouranos, which means the heaven up above the heavens).
THE GREAT TRIBULATION, ANTI-CHRIST, AND SO FORTH
Likewise, Paul did not write and teach anything concerning these issues. In spite of him knowing a whole lot of these things, as we will find reading the epistles to the Thessalonians. He once wrote to them, quote, “Regarding the coming of our Lord Jesus and our gathering with Him”.
Or as we read 1 Thess. 3:11-13, NASB,
“11 Now may our God and Father Himself and Jesus our Lord direct our way to you;
12 and may the Lord cause * you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all people, just as we also do for you;
13 so that He may establish your hearts without blame in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.”
(My emphasize)
If we don’t understand that the Thessalonians only was for the Messianic Jewish believers in the time of the apostles, as they offered to Israel the Kingdom of God on earth, with Jesus as the king at His return, we will come astray in our faith. We thus confuse the Kingdom-Gospel of the twelve apostles when they were expecting Jesus’ immanent coming (ref. Acts 3 and Peter’s speech), with the new Grace gospel of Paul…in which we are NOT awaiting the Second Advent at all.
Ephesians/Colossians is exclusive epistles written to the ‘One new Man’ – the Body of Christ…found only in these two prison epistles. It was total ‘Fresh Ware’ when revealed to Paul in prison, 63 CE.
All the other New Testament writings were written during the time-frame of Acts – and have no revelation of the Mystery as found in the prison epistles. That’s why we can be sure of these to only concern Israel and the Messianic assembly in that time. Luke described what happened in 28 – 62 CE. And we cannot find the Church dispensation in there at all. It does not ‘arrive’ until we open Ephesians/Colossians!
PAUL DOES NOT MENTION WATER BAPTISM
PAUL SAYS NOTHING OF CONFESSION OF SINS
PAUL TAUGHT NOTHING ON MIRACLES AND TONGUES
PAUL DECLARED THE LAW OF MOSES FOR ABOLISHED
I shall not go through details regarding the points 3 – 6, since much of this have been told in my many articles here on the website. Read them if you wish.
PAUL’S SITUATION STUDYING THE MAP
Not only by noticing what Paul did not teach after Acts 28 time line is worth our attention, but also Paul’s whereabouts must be noticed. Jesus had him sent right up to Rome, Acts 23:11, ‘take courage Paul, for as you have borne faithful witness concerning Me at Jerusalem, so you must also bear witness at Rome.’
Jesus put Paul in Rome, smack in the middle of the world-powers in his time. He was thus for real, sent to us Gentiles.
Peter and the eleven were only told to go to the ‘Lost sheep of the house of Israel’ – check out John 21:15-17. The Acts do confirm this Bible truth. The twelve were never sent out into world-wide mission.
It rather became the ministry of Paul exclusively.
But from the writing of Ephesians and Colossians in 63 CE, we find Paul as one who had been made a prisoner of Jesus Christ, for us Gentiles, Eph. 3:1. From then on he was really the apostle to the Gentiles indeed. He did not mention Jews, or kings…as in Acts 9:15. Now it was us Gentiles only! He had been given the ministry by Christ, to spread the new Grace Gospel to us.
Where?
In Asia Minor – which in our time is Turkey – see the map.
In Colossians we find his special care for us Gentiles, in that he listed up the main cities where he had believers when he wrote these two epistles. Ephesus, Colossae, Hierapolis and Laodicea. He sent a letter to the latter, but this has been lost. No one has found this writing. We find a doctrine of faith in Ephesians and Colossians that mention the Mystery revealed, as well as the Law of Moses abolished so Christ could create the Church, the one new man, the body of Christ to which He is Head.
Eph. 2:14-16, NASB,
“14 For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall,
15 by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace,
16 and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.”
Likewise, we find Col. 2:13-17 fully in line with Eph. 2 above. Colossians add to it, that since the Law is gone, so are the ordinances – such as holy feast days, New Moon observing, food ordinances, Sabbath – these things were only a shadow of things to come.
If we read Acts we find the Messianic believers and the apostles observing the Law, including holy feast days, Acts 21:18-20 NASB, do confirm this,
“18 And the following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present.
19 After he had greeted them, he began to relate one by one the things which God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.
20 And when they heard it they began glorifying God; and they said to him, "You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the Law;”
This was in 58-59 CE in Jerusalem and their assembly. But then we understand that this has been the fact for the entire time of Acts history. They did not at that time understand or having revealed to them that the Law had been abolished at the cross. Christ kept it hidden to the twelve and their followers, for He tested Israel to see whether they would repent to Him and take the water baptism. The entire nation had to repent to Jesus, before God could send Him back down to them to establish the millennial kingdom.
In Acts 28:25-28 we find that Israel turned the offer to have Jesus as their Messiah king down. And from that moment on, God divorced Israel and has since NOT been their God. They fell from their high position as Paul confronted the Sanhedrin in Rome 60 CE.
Consequently God had Paul placed right there, in Rome, to have him present the new revealed Grace Gospel which we still have to day.
Thus – having Paul ‘protected’ in a prison (!) so that no angry hateful Jewish mob (like those in Jerusalem) get to him and harm him.
There exists no documents/proof that show Paul’s Grace Gospel being preached in Israel. This tells us that God had entirely turned His back on the nation, and just ten years later than 60 CE, they were destroyed by the Roman army. It happened the 10th September 70 CE.
Archetypical to Paul’s whereabouts in Rome, and the new Grace Gospel in which the Law is abolished, he spread the Gospel first and foremost in Asia Minor as I mentioned above.
Have you watched the TV-series on Paul’s life, where the actor David Courtney Suchet (the Poirot character from the British Crime Series by Agatha Christie) comments the Docu-drama? As the TV-series’ final episode on Paul’s life ended, he commented, “If Paul had not come to the Gentile world with his Gospel, I am afraid that Christendom would have turned into just a small Jewish sect, and eventually disappear entirely”. David Suchet’s way of saying that it is Paul who remains the real foundational minister of Christ and the Grace Gospel sent us, as we know it in our time. Not the twelve apostles for Israel. This is a stern truth to which I have to agree! The Bible itself proves this.
CONCLUSIVELY
Since all the other writings in the N.T. – written in the time of Acts period - had to do with the Kingdom of God on earth, to which Jesus is appointed as the King - we cannot hold to these as doctrine of faith.
Only Paul’s Grace Gospel epistles, Ephesians and Colossians, are the correct scriptures to observe. We cannot ‘convert’ the historical four Gospels or Acts, into doctrine of faith to the Church dispensation. But this is exactly what has happened in Christendom over the past centuries. My exhortation comes too late I am afraid.
Paul knew all about speaking in tongues, healing the sick, casting out of demons, signs and wonders – which followed him for years and years in the time of Acts. Acts 19 shows us Paul as the entire city of Ephesus with its 200 000 inhabitants was shaken by the miracle power of God through Paul’s ministry.
And still, he did not mention these powerful things – not one word – as he wrote his two prison epistles. Miracles and healings and signs were not the subject at all. But the heavenly salvation of us Gentiles by faith in Christ, is the focus in both epistles.
Such things as miracles does not belong to the Church dispensation.
Paul started a whole new era of Gospel preaching, writing in Eph. 3:2, 3, NASB,
“2 if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace which was given to me for you;
3 that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief.”
Gracepano.com
