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and 14: 18, the very case in point), having been sanctified by the Holy
Spirit" (Rom. 15: 16).
The fact of the reconciliation is to-day taken so much as a matter of course that the
question as to whether Gentile worship and ministry might not be acceptable to God
never enters into our minds. Indeed, to-day, many have gone to the other extreme, and
deny any future blessing to Israel. It is only because the world has been reconciled to
God by the death of His Son that the gospel can go forth to the Gentiles at all. Blessed as
this is, we have not reached the height of grace. Still further and further blessings were to
be made known. If the estrangement of Israel could thus be blessed to Gentiles, we may
well believe that the setting aside of Israel at Acts 28: might be the basis of still richer
grace. This is indeed the case as we shall more fully see when we turn to the concluding
reference.
The Gentile members of the one body (Eph. 2: 11-22).
pp. 160-168
We have considered briefly, and with the omission of much detail, the ministry of
reconciliation. The dispensational place of the reconciliation, and its connection with the
setting aside of the unbelieving Jew, and the position of the nations (spoken of as "the
world" from the Jewish standpoint) rendered this reconciliation absolutely necessary
before Paul could go to the far off Gentiles with the good news of God. We have further
seen that this reconciliation has as its basis the death of the Son of God. We have not yet
read that the world was "made nigh," or had "boldness of access," but simply the fact that
the reconciliation has been accomplished, that all men everywhere were called upon to
"be reconciled to God," to "receive the reconciliation," and following upon this reception
we find the higher blessings of justification, forgiveness, &100: We saw that the grace of
God was magnified by the way in which He over-ruled the apostasy of Israel to the
blessing of the hitherto estranged Gentiles.
This principle, laid down in Romans 11:, we find obtains in fullest measure when we
turn to the epistles of the mystery. The first of the prison epistles which refer to the
reconciliation is Ephesians, and there, as in Col. 1:, the richer, fuller word apokatallasső is
employed exclusively. The argument seems to be that if katallasső is brought in by
reason of the breaking off of "some of the branches," then apokatallasső will be the reply
of grace when Israel as a whole passes off the dispensational platform. Eph. 2: contains
the only occurrence of the word Israel in the prison epistles. This reference it will be
seen is to the past, and eloquently bears testimony to the Gentile character of this set of
inspired writings. In contrast to the one reference to Israel stand the seven references to
the Gentiles in these prison epistles, which supply the positive witness to the same truth.