PART #02 of “WHICH COMMISSION? GREAT OR GRACE?”
“So-called prophetic utterances within Christendom has preached and taught much regarding God’s end time secret weapon”.
We have heard about all kinds of secret weapons and none of them line up with the Word of God.
If there were to be a secret weapon of God for this end time it would be one man.
And that man in reality would be none other than Paul the apostle of the Gentiles.
Heaven secretly had Paul specifically chosen and marked, for that perfect moment to bring in the mystery.
This was a mystery, “which was kept secret (in the mind of God) since the world began” [Romans 16:25].
We will follow up on this further down this Crumb.
Coming Back To Israel
Picking up from where we left off in the last Crumb 0077, let’s come back to Israel for a moment.
Remember that the Bible is a progressive revelation.
Keeping that in mind let us go all the way back to the Abrahamic covenant in [Genesis 12:2].
This is where have the promise of Israel becoming a nation.
God tells Abraham,“And I will make of thee a great nation”.
“And I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing”.
But in the next [Verse 3], God also promises something for the rest of world, which are the Gentiles.
“And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed”. This was regarding our salvation today.
So obviously some way or another God is going to someday reach out to the whole non-Jewish world.
When Israel was fresh out of Egypt, Moses went up to God on Mount Sinai in [Exodus 19:3-6].
Someday the Jews would become a “kingdom (nation) of priests”.
This was not just the tribe of Levi, but also all the twelve tribes of Israel.
God gave Israel this wonderful prospect.
The Prospect Not Forgotten
To be certain that the prospect is not forgotten, Isaiah is led by the Spirit to write so in [Isaiah 42: 6].
The Jewish people were to be a “light of the Gentiles”.
Again, in [Isaiah 60:3], Isaiah tells Israel that the Gentiles ”shall come to thy light”.
And then in [Isaiah 62:2], Isaiah writes that the Gentiles ”shall see thy righteousness”.
But, in order for Israel to attain this goal, God gave them covenants of promise.
After Abraham, they received the covenant of law in [Exodus 19-20], and the land covenant [Deuteronomy 30:3].
God was going to bring them back from all the nations where HE had scattered them.
Then God gave them the Davidic covenant in [2 Samuel 7:16].
“And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever”.
Finally God gave them the new covenant in [Jeremiah 31:31-35].
Take a few moments here to read it.
Highway To The Kingdom
All of this was like a highway to the kingdom.
And in the kingdom there will not only be the remnant of Israel but also a remnant of Gentiles.
We know that only believers can go into the Kingdom so how does God arrange that?
He will accomplish that by using twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes of Israel and not just the tribe of Levi.
That means that there are 144,000 Jews who will fulfill the great commission of [Matthew 28:18-20] and [Mark 16:15-16].
And what will they be preaching?
The gospel of the kingdom as found in [Matthew 24:14]:
“And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come”.
Whom will they reach?
All nations, all kindreds, and peoples of all languages. [Revelation 7:9].
That is the purpose of the so-called great commission.
A Few Survivors Left
So it follows that when the tribulation ends there will be a few survivors from all the nations of the world [Isaiah 24:6].
There will be lost survivors as well as believers, so God will bring them all before the King [Matthew 25:31-34] and [Matthew 25:41].
The believers will go into the kingdom and the lost sent to their doom.
Scripture in [Zechariah 13:8-9] reveals to us that a third of Israel will go into the kingdom.
The current Jewish population the world over is approximately fifteen million.
A third of that would be five million, which would go into the kingdom if the LORD were to come today.
The rest would perish in the seven years of the great tribulation.
So compared to Israel, other nations will only have a few.
Consequently, Israel will then enjoy the privilege of ministering to these Gentiles.
Everything fits so perfectly and all this is a part of that Great Commission exclusively for the nation of Israel.
Indeed, Israel will fulfill the great commission, which Jesus Christ spoke to them about.
God has reserved this only for them.
So how on earth does Christendom end up claiming ownership of the great commission?
They do it by twisting the Scriptures [2 Peter 3:16].
Paul The Man For The Hour
Paul the apostle indeed is the man for the hour. He is indeed God’s end time secret weapon.
He is the one that heaven chose to bring history to a close.
Paul was God’s secret instrument to bring in His final dealing with the human race before that closure.
The revelation for this “age of Grace” was given to none other but the apostle Paul.
Here is how this great apostle puts in it [Colossians 1:25-26]:
“Whereof I am made a minister”, says Paul. Scripture also so clearly reveals that in [Acts 9:15-16].
According To The Dispensation
Paul then makes a very telling statement in that this was, “according to the dispensation of God”.
In other words, this was in accordance with as to how God was now going to deal with the entire human race.
Something that was totally different from the past. It would no longer be “under the law”, but now “under Grace”.
The death, burial, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ made this judicially [Crumb 0005] possible.
It was a brand new programme.
Paul says, “which is given to me for you”, which means you and I today, “to fulfil the word of God”.
These revelations for us both fulfill and complete the Word of God.
We should be careful not get carried away by any kind of vain prophetic utterances of any kind today. This is irrespective of whoever they may be.
Apart from the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for His “Body of Christ”, everything has been revealed to us. Nothing is hidden any more.
There are no more mysteries coming.
Surely, we can trust in God’s end time revealed Word, instead of modern day meaningless and futile prophetic utterances.
Scriptural and Biblical common sense tells us that today’s so-called prophetic utterances can only come forth from false prophets.
Hammering It Home
Look at how Paul the apostle hammers this home:
“Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints”.
When Paul uses the word ‘saints’, he is not talking about folks with a halo around their heads.
He is referring to believers, those who have placed their trust in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Paul is telling us that this mystery has now been “made known” to us.
So where is the need for prophetic utterances?
We just need to understand what Paul is revealing. Every believer, young and old, is capable and can.
The Grace Commission
We, the ‘Body of Christ’ have the “Grace Commission” to fulfill.
Paul tells us in [Ephesians 1:9] that God has “made known unto us the mystery of his will”.
And that this was “according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself”.
Further down in [Ephesians 6:19] Paul says that he may open his mouth boldly, “to make known the mystery of the Gospel”.
What is the mystery of this Gospel?
That Jesus Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again for our justification [1 Corinthians 15:1-4] and [Romans 4:25].
This Gospel is “under Grace”, without Israel and without the law.
It is the “word of reconciliation” that has now been committed to us through the apostle Paul.
“God was in Christ (on that cross) reconciling the world unto Himself”, it says in [2 Corinthians 5:18-19].
Hence, Paul says that we have been ‘given’ the “ministry of reconciliation”.
A Greater Glory
Paul shows us in [2 Corinthians 3:7-11], that the ministry of Moses was the “ministration of death”.
“Written and engraved in stones” (by God), it was so glorious that the children of Israel couldn’t look at Moses’ face.
But this was a fading glory.
He goes on to explain that the “ministration of righteousness”, which comes via the cross is exceedingly greater.
And this ministry is not going to fade away like the last one. It is here to stay.
Paul, Christ’s Handpicked apostle to the Gentiles puts it across beautifully:
“For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which ‘remaineth’ is glorious”.
Plainness Of Speech
Because we have something so much more glorious, “seeing that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech”.
That is how Paul put it in [2 Corinthians 3:12].
Theology does not need bombastic ecclesiastical language. We don’t need the Oxfords and the Merriam-Websters to understand and share this greater Glory of the Gospel of Grace.
All that “plainness of speech” requires is simple words and language.
We are not here to impress anyone. God has left us here to share this great Gospel of Grace.
Paul The Latest
In all of Scripture, Moses may indeed have been the greatest, but Paul is certainly the latest. And we need to come to terms with that.
This is not a case of setting up Moses against Paul or the other way around.
God is the same yesterday today and forever, but His ‘modus operandi’ has changed.
Moses’ ministry, “under the law” was glorious indeed, but the ministry of Paul the apostle, “under Grace” carries the “greater glory”.
The “Gospel of the Kingdom” under the law, was glorious.
The “Gospel of Grace”, revealed to Paul the apostle, carries the greater glory.
Handing Over The Baton
Christ handed the baton over to His apostles, to fulfill “The Great Commission”, after having fulfilled every demand of the law.
Today through Paul, HE hands down the baton to us to fulfill “The Grace Commission”.
There is no laid out mandate and order like Israel had.
We don’t have to ‘go anywhere’ to preach Paul’s Gospel of Grace. We just preach and are a witness ‘anywhere we go’.
How wonderful is that?
