But I would now hasten to a close, having extended my paper further than I would have chosen, and take a few short notices of our Apostle in his Person, ministry, and conduct; for in these he will be found to illustrate many features of the dispensation, as his Apostleship was the general sign of it.
In his Person we see much of the dispensation reflected. He could call himself the chief of sinners, when he would magnify the grace of the dispensation, and show that it could reach over all the aboundings of sin. But he could also call himself blameless as touching the righteousness which is in the law, when he would make known the character of the righteousness of the dispensation, and show how it sets aside all other as loss and dung (1 Tim. 1: 15; Phil. 3: 8). These things are wondrous, and yet perfect. Saul of Tarsus is taken up by the Spirit, in order to present in him the grace and the righteousness that are now brought to us. Strange, that we should find the first place in the first rank of sinners occupied by him who was thus touching the law blameless. But so it was. A fair, bright, and full sample of the workmanship of the dispensation is given to us in him who was made the representative minister of it. The grace of God and the righteousness of God are displayed in his person.
So in his person we see the "thorn in flesh." And let this particularly be what it may, it was in the judgment of the world a blot. The comeliness that a world could estimate was tarnished by this. In the Spirit, he had wondrous revelations, and the secret of God was blessedly with him; but before men there was a stain upon him. But all this is in character with the dispensation. The saints, exalted in Christ, before men are to be humbled. The world is not to know them. The dispensation admits of no confidence in the flesh. In it God has set the flesh aside as profitless. The right eye is gone, and the right hand is gone; things after the external appearance are not to be looked after; there is to be no measuring or comparing of things by any such rule. And according to this, Paul had a temptation in the flesh. There was put upon him something that tempted the scorn of men. As when Jacob became Israel, he halted across the plain of Peniel. The flesh was marred, when before God he got a new and honourable name. But the shrinking of his thigh was in the same love as his victory over the Divine stranger. And so the thorn in Paul's flesh, was in the same love as his rapture into paradise. Hezekiah, in the day when he was exalted, had been left alone, that God might prove him (2 Chr. 32: 31). But the Lord was gracious to Paul, and would not leave him alone, but put a thorn in his flesh. And if he had stood in the full intelligence of the Spirit, he would not have prayed for its removal; for he had soon to recall his prayer, and to glory rather in his infirmities. Thus there is none perfect, dear brethren, but the Master Himself. Favoured and honoured as Paul and others may have been, there is none perfect but the Lord. This is comfort to our souls. God rests well pleased in Him for ever, but in Him only. He never had a desire to recall, never a prayer to summon back from the Father's ear. "He was heard." But Paul had to learn that he had mistaken the rule of blessing and of glory; he had to learn, as every saint has, that when he was weak, then he was strong. And thus with the thorn in his flesh, but the power of Christ resting on him, he shows forth the saints in this dispensation.
In his Ministry, we see something of the dispensation also. "The foolishness of God," and "the weakness of God" (that is, the testimony to Christ crucified, which the world judges "mean and slight"), were now dispensed, and according to this was Paul's ministry. It was weak and foolish in the judgment of the Greeks of this world. He came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom. His preaching was not with enticing words, but he was among the saints in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling (1 Cor. 2)
But further, extended as his preaching was over the world, it set forth the comprehensiveness of the grace of God in this dispensation. In principle the sound of this grace was to go to the ends of the earth; and so St. Paul speaks of his ministry as stretching itself on the right hand and on the left, from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum. He had received "Apostleship for the obedience of faith among all nations," and he felt himself debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. He spake to the Jews, and to the devout persons, to the common people as many as he met with, and then with the philosophers (Acts 17) His purpose was to compass the whole earth. And thus he speaks continually to the Churches of passing from place to place, by Corinth into Macedonia, returning from thence to Corinth again, and so being brought into Judea. And again, he speaks of going to Rome, as he takes his journey into Spain. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, and the Spirit that was in this Apostle of God, therefore thus reached the ends of the world. He was calling on men everywhere to repent, as did the dispensation. And when he could no longer go about with the gospel, being the prisoner of Jesus Christ for the Gentiles, "he received all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God ' and teaching those things which concerned the Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 28: 30). All this was expressive of the comprehensiveness of the grace that was now calling in "bad and good, that the wedding might be furnished with guests." In the Jewish times, the ordinances of God were all at Jerusalem. It was there that men ought to worship. The priest abode in the temple, for the dispensation was one that refused converse with men, but in righteousness kept the flock of God folded in the land of Judea. But now the dispensation is one of grace, going forth in the activities of love, to gather home the lost sheep that have gone astray upon the mountains; and preaching is therefore the great ordinance of God now. Preaching is the new appointment of God, something that is beyond the mere services of a secluded temple; and of this new ordinance Paul was made the most distinguished minister.
Then in his Conduct, I may say, that in a very general way it was made to exhibit the dispensation. In his conduct, as he says, there was "a manifestation of the truth." And this is what faith always in measure does. Faith in a living form reflects the truth dispensed. The conduct of faith, as one has observed, is always according to the principle of God's present dealings. As John says, "If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." And as St. Peter says,--"not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing; but contrariwise, blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing" (1 Peter 3: 9). That is, blessing being bestowed on us, blessing is required of us. And so in Paul's conduct, we trace the great principles of God's present dealing with the Church. The Son of God emptied Himself of the glory that He had before the world was; and while on earth ever refused Himself. With title to call for legions of angels, He was dumb as a sheep before His shearers; being free as the Son, He submitted to the exactions of others (Matt. 17: 27). So Paul, though free from all, made himself the servant of all, becoming all things to all men for their good (1 Cor. 11: 1; 2 Cor. 11: 29). And mark his words to the Ephesian elders, when he takes leave not only of them but of his ministry, ready to go into prison or unto death, for his Master--Jesus (Acts 20: 17-35). Mark what he there declares his conduct in his ministry had been, and how he testifies of himself that "he had showed them all things"; thus telling them that he had been made to take the honoured place of reflecting the actings of God in the gospel, letting the Churches see in him the blessedness of dealing in grace, which is (as we to our salvation know) the way of the Son of God in the gospel. "I have showed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak," and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, "It is more blessed to give, than to receive." This was a holy testimony which the Spirit enabled him to bear. And in a certain sense I would say, that he even surpassed the gospel; not the spirit of it (that was impossible), but the mere conditions of it. The Lord had ordained that they which preach the gospel, should live of the gospel; but he had not used this his power in the gospel (1 Cor. 9: 12). He might have been burdensome to the disciples as an Apostle of Christ, but he was desirous to impart to them, not the gospel of God only, but his own soul, because they were dear to him (1 Thess. 2: 9). But what does this reflect but the unmeasured and untiring love of God, which has visited us in the Gospel? So effectually had he learnt Christ--so blessedly was he, through grace, enabled to exhibit the dispensation--and beside, so fully was he a pattern of that conversation to which the dispensation calls us, that he could say, "Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so, as ye have us for an ensample; for our conversation is in heaven." He lived on earth as a citizen of the heavenly city, and was (as the Spirit allowed him strikingly to express it) "unto God a sweet savour of Christ."
But however honoured he might thus have been as the Apostle of the Gentiles, and in his Apostleship, person, ministry, and conduct, the witness of the dispensation; yet he was not sent, as he tells us, to baptize, but to preach the Gospel. For there was not to be any gathering point on earth. If any such had been, this Apostle would have known it. Christ was the centre of all renewed souls, and He was in heaven. The Lord was not now setting up one visible point, as He had once done at Jerusalem. The dispensation was heavenly: its source of power and its place of gathering was the upper sanctuary. It was "a citizenship in heaven" that was now enrolling; for not yet was it to be said of Zion--"this and that man was born in her." All that in every place called on the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ were now recorded on high, as in the Lamb's book.
The Rapture into Heaven.
Such was our Apostle; and far more might be added of the same character; but I will not further speak of them. I would now notice only one other thing that was peculiar to him also; I mean, his rapture into Paradise. In this he stands also as the representative of the dispensation, inasmuch as it was as "a man in Christ," that he was favoured with this rapture. In it he knows himself only as such, and therefore this paradise is the portion of all such. I judge it assuredly to have been the place of the spirit of the saint while absent from the body, and to which the pardoned thief went on the day of his crucifixion. Paul was actually* caught up to it for a season, but no other man has ever had the same joy. He calls it "paradise"--"the third heaven," the place of abundant visions and revelations. Whether in or out of the body, he knew not, but there he was. He has not been allowed to tell us much about it, and Scripture is generally silent on the nature of it. But there he was, and in this rapture of our Apostle, as by the teaching of Scripture, it is witnessed to us, that it is better to depart and be with Christ, and that the place of the delivered spirit is a place of abundant revelation, and a paradise of visions of Christ.
*Ezekiel had been caught away to Jerusalem and other places, as a prophet to Israel, that he might in the visions of God, understand and declare the Divine counsels. And so St. John was taken away to various scenes, as prophet to the Church, that he might testify in like manner of the Divine purposes. But these were only raptures in the Spirit. Philip had been actually, and not merely in Spirit, caught away to Azotus from the desert of Gaza, that as an evangelist, he might pursue his ministry among the habitation of men. So Paul is actually caught up into paradise, but this was not as a prophet, nor as an evangelist, nor as an Apostle, but "as a man in Christ," that all "in Christ" might know their portion in that blessing and honour which awaits them after this life, and which was so great that our Apostle, returning to the flesh and to the earth, was in danger of being exalted by it above measure.
The actual being of such a place was opened fully to the faith of the Church (though it might have been apprehended before), when the Head of the Church said--"Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit." And again was it verified to our faith when Stephen, "a man in Christ," said, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." But still this is not the Church's perfection. The Spirit given to us of God, is but the earnest of the house "eternal in the heavens" (2 Cor. 5) The throne of the Son of Man is the inheritance of the saints, and the glory for which the Church waits. But that place of glory is not yet prepared, as the place of the spirit of them that depart in the Lord is. There may have been visions of it, as on the holy mount, but it rests still only on vision; it is the hope still long deferred. Christ waits at the right hand for it, and the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. The whole creation groaneth for it. But it still tarries. However, beloved, the word is, wait for it--it will surely come, and will not tarry.
Many whom I love much in the Lord, may not judge with me in these things. And surely I know that we know not but in part, and therefore can but prophesy in part. But we may be helpers of each other's joy, and so has the Lord appointed it. Nevertheless, let us take heed, brethren, that we be not taught the fear of God by the commandment of men. Let us take heed of obedience in the flesh; but watch that we do what we do in the power of communion with the Lord. And in whatever of enlarged knowledge we are instructed through others, let us have grace to try it all by a conscience exercised before our God, and inquire after truth as in His presence. Be it so with Thy saints, blessed Lord, more and more! Amen.
