AUTHORITIVE VOICES
FROM THE
FIRST CENTURY
Miles J. Stanford
JESUS
- "Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the
circumcision for the truth
of God, to confirm the promises made unto the Fathers" (Rom. 15:8).
The early ministry of Jesus was to
Israel [which includes the Sermon on the Mount]. The ministry of John
the Baptist completely so. It was the Gospel of the Messianic Kingdom
that was proclaimed then (Mark 1:15); not the glorious Gospel of the Grace of
God that we proclaim now (Acts 20:24; 1 Cor. 15:1-4). The Twelve and the
Seventy were given a restricted ministry to the Jews, which will be resumed
after the Rapture (Matt. 10 and 24:14), but is not for us now.
"Little would be known of the
out-called heavenly Body from the teachings of Jesus, and nothing could
be known from any portion of the Old Testament. Jesus spoke of the
Church but three times (Matt. 16:18 and 18:17). It is absent from 2nd
Timothy, lst and 2nd Peter, lst and 2nd John, and Jude."
JOHN
- John's theme is especially the family of God. Hence the new birth,
eternal life, divine affections, are dwelt upon. And if he touches the
Church at times, it is simply as "the house of God," as in
Revelation 2 and 3; or as the Bride, in Revelation 19. But John never
gives us the Church as the Body of Christ. In the Gospels we learn of
Christ as He was in His humiliation; in Paul's Church Epistles we learn
to know Him as He is in His glorification--and we ourselves identified
with Him There.
JAMES
- James is the most elementary of all the epistles. It was not addressed
to the Church, but to the twelve tribes that were scattered by the persecution
at Jerusalem (Acts 8:1). It was written at the time when many thousands
of Jews which believed were still under the law (Acts 21:20), and does not
contain the truths that are distinctly Christian.
PETER
- Peter preached the Kingdom, the Lordship and Messiahship of Christ (Acts 2
and 3), but not Christ as Head of the Body, the Church. Peter's distinct
line [of preaching] was the Kingdom. It was the keys of the kingdom that
the Lord gave him in Matthew 16:19, and it is the kingdom theme that he
follows in his ministry in Acts; and his epistles are a development of the
same--ever leading us forward to the future form of the kingdom (2 Pet.
1:10,11).
PAUL
- The Lord Jesus Christ as Head and Life of His Body, the Church, is
truth that was revealed to and through Paul in his Church Epistles, by the glorified
Lord Jesus Christ.
"Of which I [Paul,] am made a
minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you,
to fulfill the Word of God, even the mystery which hath been hidden from ages
and from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints, to whom God
would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the
Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:25-27).
"Ye in Me, and I in you"
(John 14:20). Not only "Christ in you," but we "in
Christ," which "occurs some seventy times in Paul's
Church Epistles and only twice elsewhere (1 Pet. 3:16 and 5:14). Identification
is a doctrine unique to the Pauline revelation.
Also see DISTINCTIVE
GOSPELS