Paul And The Final Gospel

[Noblemen]

Paul and the final gospel


Some believers get upset when I speak of the final Gospel. In fact many, upon a casual look, are sure the term final Gospel has something to do with prophecy and John's end time revelation. This is far from the truth. The final gospel is concerned very little or none at all with prophecy. Almost all Bible prophecy is primarily concerned with Israel. John's revelation deals with the things that are predicted in the Old Testament and are spoken by Jesus of Nazareth, and simply fulfilled and completed in the book of Revelation.

There is no new gospel to be found there. The final Gospel has one important purpose, and that is to tell the message and story of what happens to the people who are saved by the death of Christ on the cross. This is a new group of people, with a new purpose and a new message centered in God's eternal plan. Well most of the Bible deals with people who serve God under the law, the final gospel deals with people saved by grace. This is a new group of people who have been treated differently from any people God had ever dealt with.

They are a people God had in his mind before he created the world. They are special for several reasons.

1) these people, as God's own offspring, we're destined to become the people who would fill the Father's house. His house was greatly depleted by the ouster of Lucifer and the many angels that went with him when God had to put them out because of his disobedience.

2) from that time onward, God saw that the only one who pleased him was his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and if God was to have a family in His house they would all have to have the Christ-life. It was this idea that the whole plan of God would hinge upon, Ephesians 1:4

According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

 

[mailmandan]

Ephesians 3:1 - For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles— 2 if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, 3 how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, 4 by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), 5 which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: 6 that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, 7 of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power. 8 To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; 10 to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, 11 according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.

This shows that this revelation of Jesus Christ to Paul (Galatians 1:11-12) was still a mystery in other ages.

In 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, we see that the gospel is the "good news" of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. There is a distinctive element to the content of the gospel which is called "the mystery of the gospel" (see Ephesians 6:19 and compare with Colossians 1:26-27; 4:3). This new revelation is that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs and fellow-members of the body, and fellow-partakers of the promise (Ephesians 3:6). Such equality, Jew and Gentile united together in one body, was previously unknown. The distinctive message of the Church is that Jew and Gentile alike may believe the gospel and be united together into ONE BODY (Ephesians 1:13; 1 Corinthians 12:13).