Advancing the Revelation of Truth
GOD'S CHANGING ADMINISTRATIONS OF LIFE
According to His purposes, God changes His Administrations.
Do some Christians believe that every Word of God’s Scripture is directed to them ? Every Word is certainly meant for our learning, as Paul tells the Roman Church:
For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have Hope. [Romans 15:4]
These words were written around the year 58ad, and relate to the work of the setting up of the Kingdom in Israel. The word ‘aforetime’ refers to the Hebrew collection of inspired writings that we today call The Old Testament. Most of the inspired writings of The New Testament were yet to be written.
This being so, is it right to assume that the following statement can be accepted by Christians to-day as God’s instruction for them ?
All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. [2Tim 3:16-17]
This is Paul’s bold statement to Timothy. How are we to understand it when we read in the Hebrew Scriptures the following:
[1] The Lord said to Moses and Aaron: ‘Say to the Israelites: of all the animals that live on land, these are the ones you may eat; you may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and that chews the cud…...and the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. You must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses; they are unclean for you.’ [Leviticus 11:1-8]
Christians to-day have no hesitation when feasting on pork, pork pies and other meat of the pig because Paul has contradicted God’s Word in Leviticus when he writes to Timothy:
[2] For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving. [1Timothy 4:4]
Why is Paul, the apostle to the nations, able to withstand God’s previous inspired statement ? Is it just the fact that the first is an instruction for the Israelites and the second for the nations ? Timothy’s responsibility was directed towards the Christians in Ephesus who were mostly Israelites, as he himself was.
Therefore the authority to change the Godly instruction came from elsewhere.
God administers His purposes through instruction. In order to achieve His purposes He sometimes has need to change His instruction. When He does this, He changes the basis of His Administration.
When Jesus Christ had begun His ministry, He said of John The Baptist:
Among them that are born of women there has not risen a greater than John The Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he……...All the prophets and the Law prophesied until John. [Matthew 11:11-13]
The Administration of The Kingdom of God in Israel
Thus, had Israel received it, a new Administration had begun, that of The Kingdom of God in Israel. Those that did accept it received power and thereby walked according to the new Administration taught and established by the commissioned Jesus Christ when He announced: The Spirit of The Lord is upon me:
1. Because He has anointed me
2. To preach good news to the poor
3. He has commissioned me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
4. And recovery of sight for the blind
5. To release the oppressed
6. To proclaim the year of The Lord’s favour. [Luke 4:18]
This new Administration of Israel continued for thirty-five years until 62ad when it was postponed due to their continuing intransigence:
This peoples heart has become calloused: they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them. [Acts 28:27]
This condition imposed upon Israel by God, continues to-day
You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. [Acts 28:26]
God’s Administration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Nations
After this condition was imposed upon Israel, the Spirit sealed members of the Churches found themselves without their personal power of The Spirit’s Kingdom gifts. Because of this many turned away from Paul’s inspired leadership [2Timothy 1:15] seeking a continuity of power which was condemned [Philippians 3:17-19]. However, Paul ever acting with responsibility towards all the new Christians generated by the newly circulated Gospel of John to the nations [Ephesians 1:13 and Titus 2:11], instructed Timothy and Titus in their
need when ‘planting’ new Churches [Tim 3:1-15 and Tit 1:5 to 2:10]. A new world wide Godly Administration began [Acts 28: 28], free of the limitations imposed upon Israel.
A little time later, around the years 64ad to 68ad, Paul expresses himself to the Philippian Christians in the following way:
I press towards the mark for the prize of the High Calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be mature be thus minded: and if in anything you be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. [Phil 3:14-16]
What was Paul’s Godly motivation when writing this over thirty years after Christ had met him on the road to Damascus ? He tells us in verse 8:
That I may win Christ. And be found in Him,
How does Paul recognise that this condition is to be attained ? He goes on to tell us:
not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. [Phil 3:8]
Paul now recognises that this is a righteousness which does not depend upon works. Being dead TO sin, as against being dead IN sin It is the righteousness given to us by God. Works, whether good or bad are not accounted by God, only the righteousness of His Son, Jesus Christ. When Paul writes to the Ephesians he tells them:
Even you, (hath he quickened) being dead to your trespasses and sins,
When the truth of being dead IN sins is set forth in Scripture, the Greek preposition en is used. (See John 8:21, 24, and 1 Cor. 15:17.) When the truth of being dead TO sins is set forth, the dative case is used. (Note this in Romans 6:2 & 6:10-11, and here.) [OQS]
1. How shall we that are dead TO sin, live any longer therein ? Rom. 6:2.
2. For in that Christ died, He died TO sin once; but in that He liveth, He liveth TO God [Romans 6:10 &11]
Paul expressed this fact when writing to the Church at Rome a few years before he explained its personal importance to the Christians at Philippi. A righteousness by faith in Christ, free from works. He goes on to explain how his mind should be brought into line with this righteousness of Christ after describing his ‘religious’ place that he had gained as an Israelite
Those things which were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ, and I count all things loss for the excelling of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all these things, and esteem them to be refuse, that I may gain Christ’s favour and be found in Him. [Philippians 3:7-9]
Paul goes on to encourage his friends at Philippi to have the same mind, thus implying that we, as many as be mature, should have a mind independent of all the righteousness of ‘religious’ attainment in order that we too should
Know Him and the power of His resurrection, [seated at God’s right hand] Know the fellowship of His sufferings, [rejection based upon disbelief] Be made conformable unto His death. [Christ’s Body of Glory] Gain the prize of the High Calling of God in Christ Jesus [Phil. 3:10]
Nevertheless, recognising that our minds might find this difficult to grasp, Paul tells us
If in anything you be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
The Administration of The Grace of God
Subsequently, Paul having attained this mind, he wrote to the Ephesian and Colossian Christians recording his prayer for them:
That The God of Our Lord Jesus Christ, The Father of glory may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand among the most elevated [Ephesians 1;17-20]
Since then you were raised with Christ, seek the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Give your mind to the things above, not the things on the earth.. You died and your life has been hid with Christ in God. [Colossians 3:1-3]
God never forces knowledge and understanding upon a Christian. Our responsibility is to respond to His word with intelligence and open-mindedness to allow the work of His Spirit to teach us. Because of this, Paul says that The Father may give unto you a Spirit of wisdom
Receiving this High Calling of Christ and its position with Him [1] seated at the right hand of God with [2] a body like unto His Body of Glory, are the privileges of all those who receive and enter this Administration of God’s Grace, previously hid in God but now available to all Christians who have the maturity of mind.
In whom you are being built together for a habitation of God in The Spirit. Of this grace, I Paul, am the bound one of Christ Jesus for you of the nations, Assuming, that you surely hear of The Administration of the Grace of God, which is given to me for you, For, by revelation this mystery is made known to me, [Ephesians 2:22 to 3:3]
Thus this Calling from and Seating with Christ is received by those Christians who are mature, those who are determined to apply their faith to understanding good and evil, to submitting themselves to the character provided by the fruits of the Spirit, to put aside the need to conform to religious beliefs of dos and donts. We should firmly hold the flow from The out flowing source, The Head, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.