The Apostle Paul is a representative man of this dispensation in his person, ministry and manner of life. His salvation and apostleship illustrate for us the ways of God in this dispensation. We are living in the dispensation of God’s grace. His life is a pattern to us for our lives in this day of God’s grace.
His Person
In his person we see the display both of the grace and the righteousness of the dispensation. Saul of Tarsus was taken up by the Spirit of God in order to represent in him the grace and the righteousness that are now brought to us. He magnifies the grace of the dispensation when he calls himself the chief of sinners, showing that God’s grace could reach and flow even to the greatest of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15).
When Paul would make known the character of the righteousness of the dispensation, he speaks of himself as blameless as touching the righteousness which is in the law, but then he sets that righteousness aside as loss and dung (Phil. 3:88Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, (Philippians 3:8)). The true righteousness that has been revealed to us through him is the righteousness of God in Christ.
Paul not only displays God’s grace and the gift of God’s righteousness, but he also illustrates God’s present way of displaying His grace in the believer’s life. Paul had to learn that he had mistaken the way of blessing and of glory. He had to learn, as every believer has to learn, that when he was weak, then he was strong, for God’s grace is made perfect in weakness. By his “thorn in the flesh” he represents the believers in this dispensation in their weakness, showing that such weakness is their suitable condition for the present display of God’s grace and power (2 Cor. 12:9).
In the eyes of the world the “thorn in the flesh” is viewed as a blot. The comeliness that a world could see and appreciate was tarnished by this blot. In the Spirit, Paul had wondrous revelations and the secret of God was blessedly with him, but before men there was a stain upon him. All this is in character with the dispensation. The saints are exalted in Christ, but before men they are to be humbled. The world does not know them. The dispensation allows for no confidence in the flesh. God has set the flesh aside as profitless. The man in Christ is not to look at things as man in the flesh does, that is, according to their external appearance. There is to be no measuring or comparing of things by any such rule. By external appearance there was the thorn in Paul that tempted the scorn of men.
The thorn in Paul’s flesh came from the same love as his rapture into paradise. If he had stood in the full intelligence of the Spirit, he would not have prayed for its removal; he had to learn to glory in his infirmities. No one is perfect, but the Master Himself. Favored and honored as Paul and others have been, there is none perfect but the Lord. This comforts our souls. God rests well-pleased in Him forever, but in Him only. He never had a desire to recall, never a prayer to summon back from the Father’s ear.
His Ministry
Paul’s preaching was to all the world, and it represents the comprehensiveness of the grace of God in this dispensation. The good news of God’s grace was to go to the ends of the earth. To illustrate this message of grace for all men, Paul speaks of his ministry as stretching itself on the right hand and on the left, from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum. He had received “apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations,” and he felt himself debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. He spoke to the Jews, to the devout, to the common people and to the philosophers (Acts 17). His purpose was to compass the whole earth. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. He was calling on men everywhere to repent. When Paul could no longer go about with the gospel, being the prisoner of Jesus Christ for the Gentiles, he “received all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 28:30-3130And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, 31Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him. (Acts 28:30‑31)).
In Jewish times, the ordinances of God were all at Jerusalem. Jerusalem was where men ought to worship. The priest abode in the temple, for the dispensation was one that refused to converse with other men, but in righteousness kept the flock of God folded in the land of Judea. Now the dispensation is one of grace, going forth in the activities of love, to gather home the lost sheep that have gone astray upon the mountains. Preaching is, therefore, the great ordinance of God now. Preaching is the new appointment of God, something that is beyond the mere services of a secluded temple. Paul’s preaching of this new dispensation to all men presents the pattern for all of us.
In Paul’s ministry we see what the world would consider to be “the foolishness of God” and “the weakness of God.” Paul gave testimony to the Christ crucified. Christ on the cross was weak and foolish in the judgment of the wise of this world. So Paul and his ministry came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom in the eyes of men. His preaching was not with enticing words, but he was among the saints in weakness, in fear and in much trembling (1 Cor. 2:3).
His Manner of Life
Paul lived on earth as a citizen of heaven, “for our conversation is in heaven” (Phil. 3:2020For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: (Philippians 3:20)). So effectually had he learned Christ and so blessedly was he, through grace, enabled to exhibit the character of the dispensation that the Spirit says he was “unto God a sweet savor of Christ.” So fully was he a pattern of that manner of life to which we are called that he could say, “Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample.”
Paul’s life was a “manifestation of the truth.” The truth of God revealed to Paul to give to the church was seen not only in his teaching, but it was displayed by his manner of life. His life of faith reflected the truth which he received and dispensed to others. The conduct of faith is always according to the principle of God’s present dealings. As John says, “If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” As Peter says, “Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing” (1 Peter 3:9). That is, blessing being bestowed on us, blessing is required of us.
In Paul’s manner of life we trace the spirit of Christ and the great principles of God’s present dealings with the church. The Son of God emptied Himself of the glory that He had before the world was, and while on earth He ever refused to call for legions of angels. So Paul in the spirit of Christ, though free from all, made himself the servant of all, becoming all things to all men for their good (1 Cor. 9:22). In this way his life reflects the unmeasured and untiring love of God, which has visited us in the gospel of the grace of God!
Adapted from Paul’s Apostleship and Epistles, J. G. Bellett