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thought it not robbery to be equal with God", and Who will one day be acknowledged as Jehovah, bearing "the
name that is above every name" (Phil. 2:6-11). They will acknowledge that He is the Image of the Invisible God,
that all creation visible and invisible is the work of His hands, that He is before all things, and by Him all things
consist, and that in Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 1:15-19; 2:9).
If these fundamentals find their exposition in the four prison epistles, then the more they are studied and valued
the stronger will be the testimony to the fundamentals of our faith. No space remains in which to explain why these
four epistles are so precious to us, but the interested reader is referred to Berean Messages No. 9, in which we hope
to make our reason plain.
No. 9
Dispensational truth and the Epistles of the Mystery
The reader who has seen No. 8 of this series will remember that the importance of the four prison epistles came
into prominence, and we expressed our intention to deal with the reason why these epistles are so valuable to us at
this present time. We suppose the following questions arise in the reader"s mind:
(1) WHY PRISON EPISTLES?
(2) WHY FOUR PRISON EPISTLES?
(3) WHAT ARE THESE PRISON EPISTLES?
(4) WHAT IS THEIR DISTINCTIVE TEACHING?
To answer the first question, Why prison Epistles? we shall have to turn our attention to the Acts of the Apostles,
in order to observe a few important items which are there made known concerning the ministry of the apostle Paul.
After many years of service the apostle, in Acts 20, made it clear that he had come to the end of one ministry and
was facing another. He told his hearers (in verses 17-38) that they would see his face no more, and that his future
ministry would be associated with bonds and afflictions.
Later, when standing before Agrippa, the apostle revealed that when the Lord met him on the road to Damascus,
He not only gave him a commission at the time, but promised that He would appear unto him a second time and give
him a further commission (Acts 26:16-18). Upon his arrival as a prisoner at Rome, the apostle sent for the leaders of
the Jews, and after an all-day Conference with them, dismissed them by quoting for the last time Isaiah 6:9,10, and
by saying:
"The salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and they will hear it" (Acts 28:28).
We are not left to conjecture what the apostle taught consequent upon this dispensational crisis; we have written
testimony. This prison ministry becomes eloquent to us in the epistles which Paul wrote as the prisoner of the Lord.
These we must now discover:
EPHESIANS IS CLEARLY A PRISON EPISTLE.
"I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles" (Eph. 3:1).
PHILIPPIANS IS A PRISON EPISTLE.
"My bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace" (Phil. 1:13).