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The failure of Orthodoxy to appreciate the true position.
Nearly 2,000 years of so-called `Orthodoxy' (and `Heresy'), have obscured the truth
of the above, by the failure to distinguish things that are different, and hence have
confused together two aspects of the plan of God, the earthly and the heavenly.
The emphasis placed on the Gospels, with the implication (sometimes an assertion)
that their teaching is superior to that of the Epistles, since they record the "actual words
of Christ Himself", has demonstrated this confusion, and the cries which have gone up
from time to time, "Back to the primitive church", "Back to Pentecost", have shown that
the peculiar dispensation committed to the Apostle Paul has not been appreciated. It has
not been perceived that He Who once spoke on earth, has since spoken from heaven.
Hence the words of the Gospels and Acts have been torn out of their true setting and
forced to fit a Gentile environment, which has nothing to do with the institutions of
Israel, or the promises made unto the fathers.
It is the purpose of this article to try and show how the earthly ministry of Christ, and
the Acts church, were a continuation and a completion of the true O.T. Judaism, and
could, had Israel responded, have led to this "people of God" at last being God's channel
of blessing in the earth, under their King-Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. That they failed
to become so is a matter of history, but the assurance of prophecy is that this is yet to be.
Israel have indeed a glorious future.
Christ came to fulfil.
"Think not that I came to abolish the law or the prophets: I came not to abolish, but to
fulfil" (Matt. 5: 17 English-Greek translation).
The O.T. Law has been likened to the initial, rough sketch of the painter, which
disappears from view as it is filled out with colour. The silhouette is not rubbed out, but
"filled out". Such was the relationship of Christ's teaching to the Law; it did not do
away with that law, but so filled it out, that the original sketch was lost to view in the
glory of its fullness. An inner, deeper meaning was given to the law; a higher standard
of righteousness, which exceeded (lit. "abounded above") that of the scribes and
Pharisees, and which was necessary for entry into the "kingdom of the heavens" (verse
20). This righteousness was described by the Lord:
"Ye have heard that it was said to the ancients, Thou shalt not commit murder; but
whoever shall commit murder, shall be liable to the judgment. But I say unto you, That
everyone who is angry with his brother lightly, shall be liable to the judgment; but
whoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be liable to the Sanhedrin; but whoever shall
say, Fool, shall be liable to the Gehenna of fire" (verses 21, 22 English-Greek
translation).
As has already been stated, the ministry of the Lord "assumed a continuance of the
Jewish institutions", and this is seen here when the Lord refers to "the Judgment" and
"the Sanhedrin". It surely makes more sense to allow that he was referring to the literal