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#9.
The Gospel for To-day.
pp. 103 - 105
Most believers who have been led to see the truth of the "Mystery" immediately feel
that some different presentation of the gospel becomes necessary. The "Whosoever will"
evangel does not seem to harmonize with the peculiar teaching of the prison epistles. The
gospel of the Kingdom (as given in Matthew) or the fuller and future gospel of
"Whosoever is willing", when the Spirit AND the Bride shall witness together after the
Day of the Lord (Rev. 22: 17), do not express the good news of God for the present
time. Let us observe one or two outstanding features of the present dispensation.
1. GENTILE.--The secret purpose of God for the present interval could not be made
known nor introduced until the people of Israel had been set aside. The present emphasis
is not (a) Salvation is of the Jews, (b) The Jew first and also the Gentile, but (c) The
Gentile WITHOUT the Jew at all. This statement by no means excludes the Jew as an
individual from believing in Christ as Saviour and Lord now.
2. GRACE.--When the apostle was about to become a prisoner and looked forward
to finishing his course and the ministry he had received, he speaks of it as being "the
gospel of the grace of God" (Acts 20: 24). This exactly fits the present period, for it is
called in Eph. 3: 2 "the dispensation of the grace of God".
Plainly, each dispensation must have its own gospel or set of good news. The gospel
of the kingdom runs with the dispensation of the kingdom. The gospel of the grace of
God goes with the dispensation of the grace of God. The great basis of the gospel to-day
is found in Romans. The limitations of this present article forbid any attempt at opening
up this marvelous epistle, but we call attention to the following. The epistle opens with
the gospel of God which had been promised before by the prophets in the Holy
Scriptures. It closes with a reference to a gospel which was intimately associated with
the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery, which had been
silenced in the age times, but was now made manifest through prophetic writings.
The gospel of God occupies Rom. 1: 1 - 5: 11. It deals with the Jew and the Gentile in
their separate needs, shewing that whether under the law of conscience and creation, or
under the superadded law of Sinai, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
The gospel that is connected with the mystery which had been silenced is related to
something deeper than anything revealed in Rom. 1: 1 - 5: 11. There the personal sins
and doings are under review; here in Rom. 5: 12-21 the failure and fall of the creature
apart from his deeds is brought to light. The gospel of God goes back to ABRAHAM,
the mystery of Rom. 16: goes back to ADAM. In no other place except I Cor. 15: is it
revealed that Adam's one act of disobedience is the great cause of sin, death and
condemnation. This opens the way for the preaching of Jesus Christ according to this
mystery, and shows that:--
"As through the disobedience of the one the many were constituted sinners, so also
through the obedience of One, the many shall be constituted righteous" (Rom. 5: 19).