“How
to Approach the Bible”
A
study series by Arthur J Licursi
Part 11 of 24 - A
Comparison between “The 12 Apostles” and Paul, “the
Apostle to the Gentiles”
Compare:
The Twelve Apostles
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With:
The Apostle Paul
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12
Representatives of the Nation of
Israel
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Paul
is God’s Representative to the One “Body of Christ”
Acts 9:15 …he
(Paul) is
a chosen vessel unto me,
to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the
children of
Israel
:
Eph 2:16
that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by
the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: Galatians 3:28 There
is neither Jew nor Greek… ye are all one
in Christ Jesus.
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Called
By Jesus of Nazareth, While He was on Earth
Luke 6:13
And when it was day, he (Jesus) called unto him his
disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he
named apostles;
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Paul
was Called By the Ascended Jesus “from Heaven”
Acts 9:3-5…suddenly
there shined round about him (Paul)
a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth,
and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest
thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I
am Jesus whom thou persecutest…
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The
Twelve Knew The Earthly Jesus (Act 1:9)
They
proclaimed a physical, literal, earthly Kingdom for the
Jews, as promised to Abraham’s Seed.
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Paul
Knew Only The Christ of Heaven (1Cor
15:8)
Paul
proclaimed the highest heaven for “the Church which is His
body” (Eph 1:22-23), as our home (Philip 3:20).
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Apostles
Message of the Kingdom was sent to
Israel
only.
(Intended Ultimately to bless the Nations, through
Israel
)
Matt 10:5-6 These
twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not
into the way of the Gentiles, and into any
city of the Samaritans enter ye not: 6 But go
rather to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel
.
The
Gentiles were to be saved through
Israel
.
Luke
24:47-48 that
repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his
name among all nations, beginning at
Jerusalem
. 48 And ye are witnesses of these things. (see
Mal. 3:12)
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Paul’s
Gospel of Grace was Sent to All Men Everywhere, without Israel
Romans 10:12 For
there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same
Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.
Romans 11:32 For God hath
concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy
upon all.
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Sent
to Proclaim God’s Prophesied Program, With Salvation of
The Gentiles to Come Through Israel’s RISE.
Zechariah 8:23 …
take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We
will go with you: for we have heard that God is
with you.
Acts 3:25-26.
Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which
God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed
shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. 26
Unto you first God, having raised up his Son
Jesus, sent him to bless you…
Gen. 18:18, 22:18, 26:4
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Paul
says Salvation of the Gentiles
Actually Came Through
Israel
’s FALL.
It was Not Prophesied
(Rom 11:7-33).
Romans
11:11 (KJV) I
say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid:
but rather through their (
Israel
’s) fall salvation is come unto the
Gentiles, for to provoke them (
Israel
) to jealousy.
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The
Twelve Agree to Confine their Ministry to
Israel
, After God Raised Up Paul to the Gentiles
(see Act 15).
Gal 2:2 I
went up by revelation, and communicated unto them that (unique)
gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to
them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run, or
had run, in vain. Gal 2:9 …when James, Cephas, and
John…perceived the grace that was given unto me (Paul),
they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship;
that we should go unto the heathen,
and they unto the circumcision.
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Paul
is THE Apostle to the Gentiles, turning to the Gentiles after
Israel Rejects the King and His Kingdom.
Acts 28:28 Be
it known …unto you (
Israel
), that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles…
they will hear it. Rom
11:13 I am talking to
you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the
Gentiles…1 Corinthians 14:37…let him acknowledge
that the things that I (Paul) write
unto you are the commandments of the Lord. Romans
2:16 In the day when God shall judge the
secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my
(Paul’s unique) gospel.
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Paul Was
Not One of “The Twelve”
The qualifications for the
position that Judas held are clear.
“Wherefore
of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord
Jesus went in and out among us, Beginning from the baptism
of John, unto that same day that He was taken up from us, must one
be ordained to be a witness with us of His resurrection” (Acts
1:21-22). The “lot” therefore fell to “Matthias; and he was numbered
with the eleven apostles” (Acts 1:26).
These are Paul's inspired
words. “For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the
Apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office” (Rom.11:13). As
we have already stated, Paul is not one of the Twelve Apostles as many
teach today and certainly was not chosen to take Judas' place. Acts
1:16-26 gives ample proof that Saul of Tarsus did not even qualify
as a follower of Jesus Christ at that time, he was an unbeliever! He had
not followed the Lord from John's baptism “unto that same day that
(Jesus) was taken up from us” (Acts 1:22).
Note Paul's own testimony
as he later recounts his conversion before King Agrippa: “And I
punished them (the Jewish Christians) oft in every synagogue, and
compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I
persecuted them even unto strange cities” (Acts 26:11). Paul was at
the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7:58. Paul next comes upon the scene in
Acts 9:1-2, which describes him as “a blasphemer, and a persecutor,
and injurious” (ITim.1:13), on his way to imprison and “put to
death” Jesus' Messianic followers at
Damascus
(Acts 26:10). This is a far cry from Paul being eligible for the position
that Judas held with the disciples of the Lord. Paul was therefore most
ineligible to be one of “the twelve.” He had not even seen
Jesus of Nazareth during our Lord's earthly ministry and certainly had not
walked with Jesus as the twelve had.
Later, when Saul finally
did get saved, it was the Lord Himself who stopped Saul in his tracks and
saved him from further persecution of Messiah's followers: “And I
fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why
persecutest thou Me? ... And when I could not see for the glory of that
light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into
Damascus
” (Acts 22:7-11).
Thus, Paul was specially “chosen”
by God through whom God's Son is to be revealed to all nations (Gentiles)
since the favored nation,
Israel
, refused to accept the Messiah under the so-called “Great
Commission.” This is what makes Paul's ministry and apostleship so very
distinct from that of the Twelve, and their kingdom gospel.
Furthermore, Colossians,
chapter one, makes it clear that God began something very new and
different with Paul's conversion – “the Church, which is the Body
of Christ:”
“Who now
rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the
afflictions of Christ in my (Paul’s) flesh for His body's
sake, which is the Church:
“Whereof I
(Paul) am made a minister, according to the
dispensation of God which is given to me (Paul) for you,
to fulfil (complete) the Word of God;
“the mystery
which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made
manifest to his saints (believers): “To whom God would make
known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery
among the gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of
glory” (Col.1:24-27).
Seeing these great
differences between “the twelve” and Paul, then how foolish and
wrong it is for any of us to take just any scripture in the Bible to
determine the Lord's will for us today. By this I mean, what right do we
have to choose some particular segment of our Lord's instructions to
“the twelve” or “the eleven” Apostles, to whom He spoke of
Messianic kingdom as promised to Israel, and try to apply these
instructions to ourselves or to the church today? The Lord gave only those
Apostles those instructions as He spoke to them things that pertain to the
Messianic “
kingdom
of
God
” to come to earth, as promised to Abraham’s seed. Nothing could
be clearer than the fact that our Lord “showed Himself alive after
His passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days and
speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts
1:3), which was promised to Abraham’s literal seed. Thus the object
of Jesus’ teaching immediately after the cross was still “thy
kingdom come…on earth,” as promised to
Israel
.
In those forty days then,
one Person, our Lord Jesus Himself, spoke to the eleven Apostles. He gave
them instructions as to the program they were to carry out after His
ascension. Those instructions were to continue what Jesus had begun, as we
see in the Gospels. In every single case it is crystal clear that these
commands were not directed to any other persons who were to live at
some future date. Only these Apostles were to commence to carry them out
His instructions after Jesus’ departure, and after the Holy Spirit would
endue them (come upon them to clothe them) with power to minister in this
way with miraculous “signs following” (Mark 16:20), and for
that time only.
This is emphasized by the
phraseology found in all five records of the so-called “great
commission” that Jesus spoke to those specific disciples only. Matt.
28:19 “Go ye”; Mark 16:15 “Go ye”; Luke 24:48 “Ye
are witnesses”; John 20:21 “So send I you”; and Acts 1:8 “Ye
shall be witnesses.”
It is preposterous to
argue, as so many hard-pressed theologians have done, that one or more
segments of the “great commission” are to be carried out by another
generation and dispensation at a later time than that in which it was
spoken. If this commission was to be binding upon “the church, which
is His body” today, as they often seem to imply, what authority
would we have to choose which part or parts of that commission we shall
obey? Shall we cast aside Jesus’ command to “take up serpents”
(Mark 16:18), as Jesus proclaimed to His Jewish Apostles? Shall we “have
all things in common” as they the Jerusalem Pentecostal church had
in the early Acts period? To do so would be to play fast and loose with
our Biblical interpretation; robbing from those who were actually being
addressed by the Lord at that time and in regard to their calling under “the
gospel to the circumcision.”