The order of Apostles, and the ministry generally, differ under different dispensations.

Priesthood and sacrifices have ceased, and have no place at present with us.  The

Apostles of the Lamb do not include in their number the Apostles of the mystery

connected with Paul. The organized gatherings of believers differ also. God's "people"

are Israel, they constitute, or will constitute, a kingdom. An election from among them

will constitute "a royal priesthood." The church formed during the period covered by the

Acts of the Apostles will, together with an elect remnant of Israel, constitute the Bride (as

distinguished from the Wife, who is to be restored after a long period of separation). The

Church formed by God during the period covered by Israel's rejection commencing with

the end of the Acts, constitutes not the Bride of Christ, or the subjects of the kingdom of

the heavens, but the Body of Christ, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.

Now the reader who has not studied the Scriptures very fully, will perhaps have a host

of objections and questions which he would interject were we speaking to him instead of

writing. We sympathized with all such, and the preparation of this series is our tangible

expression of that sympathy. In this article we have called attention to the need for right

division. In subsequent issues we shall hope to take up point by point, and show the

teaching of the Word concerning it. It will be our endeavour to write simply, and to

confine ourselves as far as possible to one subject at a time, avoiding the tendency to use

parenthesis, which we find is somewhat characteristic of our pen.

Letters from those for whom the articles are written will be appreciated, and will

indicate what are the special difficulties with which we ought to deal.

Having considered the fact that there are many and great differences in the various

dispensations, it will be well to observe that all these different lines of truth are united,

inasmuch as God is working out a mighty purpose, affecting heaven and earth, and that

these changes of dispensational dealings instead of indicating experiment of caprice, are

so many links in a wondrous chain. None but a superficial reader of the Bible will

assume that the Scriptures are given to explain everything, or to answer all the enquiries

of the human mind. There are some things which God kept secret for thousand of years,

never revealed until He committed them to the Apostle Paul (see Eph. 3:). There are

some things concerning which we are told hardly anything. Take for example the Bible

record of Satan. His first introduction into the page of Scripture is as a fallen being

(Gen. 3:). No explanation is offered, no reason is given. We start the record of the

purpose of God as pertains to man with the revealed yet unexplained fact. As it is with

Satan's beginning, so with the last we hear of him. In Rev. 20: he is put into the lake of

fire there to be tormented unto the ages of the ages. What happens to him at the end of

that period Scripture does not say. Satan may be referred to under the figure of the king

of Tyre in Ezek. 28: 11-19, but it may refer to some other being, and cannot be used

as a definite argument.