Have we Thrown the Baby out with the Bath Water?
I am a member of a community of faith1 that is commonly referred to2 as “grace believers,” “Pauline dispensationalists,” “rightly dividers,” etc.
Th0ugh we may have disagreements over many points of doctrine in this communion, we all generally agree on one important thing: that the message of the Bible, written “for the obedience of faith”3 to the world for the last two thousand years, is encapsulated in the 13 epistles of the apostle Paul, Romans thru Philemon.
Now this flies in the face of the teachings of mainstream Christian theology, which says the primary message to God’s church in the world today is the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Moreover, those who teach this often accuse me and others of my communion, that by separating Paul’s epistles, you are corrupting the “gospel,” in effect, “throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” so to speak. This begs the questions: a. Are the four gospels doctrine to the present church in the world? And b. can anyone be saved by following the instructions in them?
The answer to both questions is NO. The gospel4 for the world today is “the gospel of Christ”5 , which is briefly stated as follows:
“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;
By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ…the Son of God, resurrected from the dead…. died for our sins according to the scriptures;
And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures…for our justification…believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved”6
This gospel is routinely conflated by the bulk of Christian theologians with what is referred to as “the gospel of the kingdom..the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”7 that the Lord Jesus Christ gave to his 12 disciples to deliver to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel”8 as follows:
These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand….Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ…the Son of God… for the remission of sins….keep the commandments….sell all your worldly possessions….and endure unto the end to be saved.”9
The only similarity between these two gospels is the declaration of Jesus Christ to be the Son of God. The rest is different. For example, In Paul’s gospel, the gospel of Christ, when the hearer believes and receives it, he/she is “saved” at that moment in time; in the gospel of the kingdom, the hearers–all Jews–upon repenting of the sin of crucifying Jesus10 they had t0 be baptized, sell out, and continue/endure (not sin) unto the end to be saved. 11 In Paul’s gospel to Gentiles12, salvation is the beginning of a life of faith for the adherent; in the 12’s gospel to Israel, it is at the end of a life of faith of the adherent. In the former, the keeping of the law is removed from the equation for salvation; in the latter, it remains as a requirement for salvation.13
When the apostle Paul instructed Timothy to rightly divide the word of truth,14 this is the primary division he is commanding him (and us!) to make. By attempting to blend Paul’s gospel with the gospel of the kingdom, as most Christian teaching does, the works of the law become a requirement for salvation, which keeps the believer under the burden of sin and its penalty, when God wants you to be free of this.
It isn’t that the gospels contain no truth for the believer in Christ in the world today. First and foremost, they are the chronicle of the first advent of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on the earth, his death, burial, resurrection from the dead, and ascension into heaven. Indeed, they are foundational to the gospel of Christ. But the stated purpose of that coming to earth by God our Savior 15 in the gospels, was “to save his people from their sins”16 i.e., the rest of the world, within a mystery referred to as “the dispensation of the grace of God,”17 viz. an interruption in the fulfilment of the prophetic program given to Israel. That task He gave to Paul to reveal to the world.
All Scripture references are quoted from the King James Bible.
Related articles: From Which “Plan” Shall We Build?; Is the Body of Christ one and the same as the New Covenant Church?; Paul is the Pattern; The Ministries of Peter and Paul; The Mystery
Post Script
Are you saved? Jesus Christ—“who knew no sin”—and his sacrificial death on the Cross, has made the way for “everyone that believeth…to be reconciled to God. History has shown that whatever peace man has achieved in the world can only be temporary. The Bible says that individual men and women can know, beyond a doubt, that they are saved and bound for heaven, and therefore have absolute and permanent peace, regardless of what is going on in the world, by trusting Jesus Christ and his death on the cross for their eternal salvation. “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures….for our justification….believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”26 Have you done this? If not, why not now?
not anything of an ‘official’ nature–nothing, certainly, of an ‘organizational’ nature, but rather of a like-minded belief thing. ↩
among those in my community of faith ↩
Rom. 16:25,26 ↩
good news; glad tidings ↩
Romans 1:16 ↩
1 Cor. 15:1-4; Romans 1:3,4; 4:25; Acts 16:31 ↩
Matt 4:23; 9:35; 24:14; Mk 1:1, 14,15 ↩
Matt 10:6; 15:24 ↩
Matt 3:2; 4:17; 10:6.7; 19:21; 24:13; Mk 1:1; 13:13; Luke 18:22; Acts 2:22, 36, 38 ↩
Acts 2:36 ↩
reference 1 Peter 1:9-13, and 1 John 3:1-9 for confirmation of the requirment of faithfulness to be saved ↩
Ref Romans 11:13; Galatians 2:7 ↩
Ref. Acts 13:38,39; Matt 19:17; 1 John 2:1-5 ↩
2 Timothy 2:15 ↩
1 Timothy 2:3 ↩
Matt 1:21; 15:24), not to reveal that His sacrifice paid the price for the sins of Gentiles outside the covenants of promise, ((Eph. 2:11-15 ↩
Eph. 3:1-9 ↩