When he wrote to the saints of Galatia the Apostle Paul was careful to observe that the Gospel he preached was given to him "by revelation of Jesus Christ" (Gal. 1:12). He had not received what he preached from any of the twelve apostles, nor did any man teach him, but God had separated him from his mother's womb, to reveal His Son in him that he might preach Him as Glad Tidings among the nations (verses 12, 15, 16). Fundamentally and essentially the Gospel that Paul preached was that preached by Peter and the other apostles, but it had its own peculiar revelations and features, so that Paul could speak of "my Gospel." It was Paul's Gospel because he received it directly from the Lord by divine revelation. Paul had a double ministry, and wrote of himself as minister of the Gospel and minister of the church (Col. 1:23-25). Let us consider briefly some of the features of Paul's Gospel.
Speaking to the elders of Ephesus, Paul said that he desired to finish his course, and the ministry that he had received from the Lord Jesus, "to testify the Gospel of the grace of God" (Acts 20:24). The Apostle had learned in the Lord's dealings with him how rich God's grace is, and was eminently suited to make it known to others. The rich grace of God that had taken all his sins away, and brought him into God's favour, was the grace available for the blessing of all who would trust in the Son of God whom Paul preached. To Jews and Greeks the Apostle preached the same message, showing that the way into divine blessing was by "repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20:21).
Included in Paul's message was "preaching the kingdom of God" (Acts 20:25), and the declaration of "all the counsel of God" (Acts 20:27). Those who accepted the word of divine grace came under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, being translated into the "kingdom of God's dear Son," and from Him learning of all that God had in store for the blessing of His own, according to His counsel of eternal love. The counsel of God brings before us the wonderful truths of "the riches of His grace," and "the glory of His grace," and all these wondrous things are part of the Gospel of the grace of God.
The Epistle to the Romans expounds to us God's Gospel, and is written by Paul as the minister of the Gospel. If Paul can speak of it as "my Gospel" (Rom. 16:25), as being specially entrusted with its preaching, he leaves us in no doubt as to the source and subject of the Gospel, for he writes of it as "the Gospel of God," and "concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 1:1, 3). God is the source of the Gospel, and His Son is its subject. Paul tells us that the Gospel is God's power to salvation to every one who believes, and that in the Gospel "the righteousness of God" is revealed "from faith to faith" (Rom. 1:16-17).
Until verse 11 of chapter 5 Paul writes of how God has dealt with the question of our sins, and has justified us by faith on the ground of redemption, and of how we now stand in God's favour, rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God, having the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us, and that we now joy in God who has reconciled us to Himself. After Romans 5:11 Paul shows us how God has dealt with the sin that is in our nature, setting us free from the power of sin so that we might serve Him. We are no longer viewed as being in Adam, but as being "in Christ," where there is no condemnation. Nor are we "in the flesh," although the flesh is in us, but we are "in the Spirit," and we have the Holy Spirit as our life, as the Spirit of sonship, and as the power to live for God's will and pleasure.
As God's sons and His children we are looking for our part with Christ, to share all things with Him, and while in a groaning creation "the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered." God foreknew us before we had any being, and He predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son, and soon we shall be with Christ where He is "the Firstborn among many brethren." While waiting for that day, God is for us, and Christ, at the right hand of God, also maketh intercession for us.
After writing in 1 Corinthians 15 of the Gospel that he preached to the saints there, Paul wrote, "Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed" (1 Cor. 15:51). This is one of the peculiar revelations of Paul's Gospel. At the resurrection of the sleeping saints, when the Lord Jesus comes for His own, the saints who are alive will not pass through death, but will be changed. The earlier verses deal with the resurrection of the just, but this revelation tells that the living saints will put on an incorruptible body, and what is mortal will put on immortality. Earlier, in verses 22-28, there are also wonderful revelations concerning Christ's coming kingdom and the eternal state.
Another blessed revelation of Paul's Gospel is the rapture of the church to heaven, as given in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17. We have already seen in 1 Corinthians 15 that when the dead in Christ are raised, the living saints shall be changed. Now we learn that when this great change takes place the Lord will take the saints to heaven. The Lord will come with an assembling shout, gathering His saints together before taking them away. The "voice of the archangel" may be to announce to the angels that their present ministry towards the saints, the heirs of salvation (Heb. 1:14), is now completed.
In contemplating that in preaching Christ's Gospel the servants of the Lord were "the savour of death unto death; and … the savour of life unto life," Paul wrote, "And who is sufficient for these things?" (2 Cor. 2:16), but he could add, "our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us ministers of the new covenant" (2 Cor. 3:5-6). The new covenant will be made with Israel in the coming day, but the spirit of the new covenant is now ministered in the Gospel, and for us it is a ministry of righteousness and a ministry of the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:8-9). The glory of the new covenant dims the glory of the old, and we now see the glory in the unveiled face of the Lord, and it is our privilege to be occupied with His glory.
The Gospel that tells us of the glory of the new covenant, and the glory of the Lord, also tells us of the glory "of Christ, who is the image of God," and of the "glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:4-7). All God's thoughts are to be learned in the last Adam, glorified at God's right hand; and in Him we see the glory that God has acquired by His death on the cross, and the glory that shows what God's thoughts are of the One who glorified Him in life and in death.
Chapter 5 of 2 Corinthians reveals that all will appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Christians will not be judged there, but will receive the things done in the body, learning Christ's mind on our whole course in this world. Then we shall be like Him, having "our house which is from heaven" (2 Cor. 5:2, 10). How blessed is the knowledge that we are now in new creation as being "in Christ," and that we are reconciled to God by Jesus Christ, and are God's righteousness in Him.
The divine glories of the Son are brought before us in Isaiah 9:6, in John's Gospel, and in many other Scriptures, but Paul had the privilege of making known in his Gospel the "unsearchable riches of Christ" (Eph. 3:8), the glories and riches that belong to Christ as the Man of God's counsels, according to the truth of the mystery. Such Scriptures as Psalm 8 foretold the place the Son of Man would have in the coming day, but it was not until Christ had been glorified that the Spirit of God brought forth the wondrous tidings, through Paul, of the relationship of the church to Christ as His body and His bride, and of the place that the believing Jew and the believing Gentile would share in association with a heavenly Christ.
How great are Christ's riches as the Head over all things, all the resources of the vast universe being His, and from what is His He will supply all that is needed to carry out God's will in the coming ages. Even now the saints are sustained from Christ's great resources, even as Paul wrote, "But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4:19). "The mystery of the Gospel" (Eph. 6:19), which Paul desired to make known, brings Christ before us according to the eternal purpose of God as the Man of His right hand.
We have seen that the Gospel of the glory of Christ as the image of God is spoken of by Paul in 2 Corinthians 4, but to Timothy the Apostle writes of "the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted" (1 Tim. 1:11). God's glory is set forth in the Gospel, a Gospel that makes Him known in His nature of love, in His holiness and righteousness, and in His compassion towards men. All that man is naturally in sin is the very antithesis of what the blessed God is as made known in the Gospel. The moral glory of God has been seen perfectly in the perfections of Jesus in Manhood in this world, and in Him where He is in God's presence now.
Is it not surpassing wonderful that such a God should take up a man like Saul of Tarsus and entrust him with such a Gospel? Paul thought this himself, for he had been "before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious," and the chief of sinners (verses 13-15). If God could act in this way with the chief of sinners it showed that His grace and mercy were available to all, and that divine blessing would be the portion of all who trusted the Christ of God.
Timothy was exhorted by Paul, "Be thou partaker of the afflictions of the Gospel according to the power of God" (2 Tim. 1:8), keeping in mind that God "hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling … according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." This divine grace was manifested in Christ in Manhood, who though His entry into death has abolished death, and brought life and incorruptibility to light through the Gospel.
While on earth the Son of God could say, "I am … the life" (John 14:6), but in His death He made life available for us, and this is proclaimed in the Gospel. Our Saviour went into death to secure God's glory and our blessing, but He also annulled death, breaking its power, and robbing it of its sting. Coming out of death, the risen Son of God said to His disciples, as He breathed on them, "Receive Holy Spirit" (John 20:22), the last Adam communicating to His own a new life, the life that is brought to light by the Gospel.
When the Lord Jesus comes for His own, as we have seen in 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4, He will give them bodies of glory like His own body of glory (Phil. 3:21), but we already are in the light of this through the proclamation of the Gospel.
Wm. C. Reid.