One was requested to give these addresses, and, furthermore, the subject of them was likewise suggested—that is, “Paul’s doctrine in these last days.” We might consider, especially for the benefit of those who are younger, the ground of gathering together for collective worship and fellowship. Confessedly, this is a large subject; we could not hope to do it justice in one address. So we have arranged, God willing, to have three addresses on the subject. That means that some of the things we would like to say tonight will have to remain unsaid for another night, when we will be able to complete the circle of truth we have in mind.
Perhaps we should start out something like this: We know according to the promise of the Lord Jesus that a new thing was to be brought forth upon the earth when He said, “I will build My church” (Matt. 16:1818And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18)). Evidently it did not exist at that time. To go on a little further in its history, we find at the close of the gospel of Luke that the Lord tells the disciples they are to tarry at Jerusalem where they should receive power from on high. This is again alluded to in Acts 1. We find the disciples obeying the injunction as they waited together in the upper room, and, when the day of Pentecost was fully come, the Spirit of God came and formed an entity upon the earth. It was not complete in all the purposes of God, because the Gentiles were to be brought in later, but it had its beginning, its birthday, on the day of Pentecost. Peter was the one the Lord had chosen to use the keys of the kingdom of heaven. He used them on the day of Pentecost, later he used them in admitting the Samaritans, and, finally, God used him in a definite, special way to throw the door wide open for the Gentiles in Acts 10. When Peter has finished this mission, we do not hear a great deal more about him. He soon bows out of the scene, and another unique figure comes before us who dominates the remainder of the history of the church as we have it recorded in the Word of God. That man, of course, was Paul, the Apostle.
Our thought tonight is to trace the connection of Paul’s ministry with the revelation of the truth of the church of God. Paul has a dominant place in this particular revelation. Of the eight holy men through whom God chose to give us the New Testament, here is one who occupies a most important place. The other apostles were chosen by our Lord when He was here upon earth; they had companied with Him. That was one of the requirements in order to be numbered among the apostles. But with the Apostle Paul, God acted in an extraordinary way; He separated that man from his mother’s womb. Paul was a definitely chosen, prepared, elect instrument from the time he came into this world. God had great work for that man, and He chose and fashioned an instrument that could do it better than any other.
I suppose that Paul’s ministry has evoked more opposition than that of any other author in the New Testament. Modernists are almost all opposed to Paul’s line of thinking, because they say he narrowed Christianity down to the Jewish way of thinking and reduced it to a system of vicarious sacrifice in order to approach God. Thus they say the world lost its opportunity to carry out the great conception of Jesus as to the brotherhood of man and fatherhood of God. Modernism definitely does not care much for Paul’s line of things. When you come to the other branches of Christendom, those who profess to believe the Bible, they seem somewhat reluctant to go all the way with Paul. They evidently feel that Paul condemns many of the things with which they are going on, for you cannot consistently profess to believe a thing and act directly contrary to it. So, many a man — many a Christian leader — who says he believes the Word of God —who says he is a fundamentalist — will definitely sidestep many of the things in Paul’s ministry, because they come into collision with the system with which he is connected.
When we come to consider Catholicism, we find that they do not want their people to know about Paul’s ministry. Why should they want their followers to know that there is but one Mediator between God and men, or to read of the fact that by one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified? No, that branch of the professing Christian church does not care to have Paul’s ministry spread abroad among their followers.
On a train recently one had a long talk with a Catholic priest, a young man about 27 years of age. He confessed without a blush that he had never read Paul’s ministry. Yes, he had read the four gospels, but in his five years in training as an ecclesiastic, he had never given one cursory reading to the ministry of Paul.