*How Revelation Enters the Church

Many years ago, during Herbert W. Armstrong's ministry, we read the passage beginning in Galatians 1:6 quite often. He would tell us that the apostle Paul had written this epistle less than thirty years after Christ's death and resurrection, making it one of the earliest-written books in the New Testament. He pointed out as amazing and alarming what was already beginning to happen within the church:

I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. . . . For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ. But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:6-8, 10-12)

Only a little more than a generation had passed since the founding of the church, yet false gospels, perversions of the truth, were making serious trouble for those early Christians. Paul was warning those in Galatia not to listen to those who are trying to persuade them away from the true doctrines of God, which they had learned when the apostles had preached the true gospel to them.

After warning them, Paul defends himself against the unwritten question, "How do we know that you preached us the truth?" He asks in return, "From what you've seen of me, do I try to seek the favor of men or God? Do I seem to be a men-pleaser?" Clearly, he always put the truth of God before pleasing people, and he had had to pay the price for it in persecution and peril (see II Corinthians 11:23-33). He considered these sacrifices proof that he was a true servant of God.

Then, in Galatians 1:11-12, he lets them know where the message he had taught them came from. He was taught, he said, not by any man (verse 16), but by Jesus Christ Himself. Once God had called him on the road to Damascus, and after he was baptized, he went down to Arabia (verse 17), and stayed there for three years (verse 18). It was there that Christ taught him the truth as an apostle "born out of due time" (I Corinthians 15:8). Christ had a special job for Paul and wanted to give Him the same kind of instruction that He had given the Twelve.

No one knows if Christ came down and appeared to him, teaching him directly, or whether He opened Paul's mind and revealed the truth out of Scripture. However, when he went up to Jerusalem three years later and talked with Peter, James, and John, he found out that they agreed completely on the gospel of God (Galatians 2:9). These apostles understood that Paul was a fellow apostle with them and that he would preach primarily to the Gentiles.

By his personal history, Paul shows that he had received the same revelation from God that the original disciples had been given. Thus, the gospel that Paul preached was the same gospel that Peter, John, and the other apostles were also preaching. They all preached from the same Source: Jesus Christ. Our beliefs should rest on that same foundation, which is now printed in our Bibles. Notice Ephesians 2:19-22:

Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

In terms of revelation from God, this passage informs us that a true understanding is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. In the past, God revealed certain things to the prophets in Old Testament times and to the apostles in New Testament times, and they wrote those things down for our learning (see Hebrews 1:1; Romans 15:4; I Corinthians 10:11). Jesus Christ is called "the chief cornerstone" because He is the true Foundation and Source of all revelation. He is the One who joins all the revelation together and makes it work. We, then, having this sure foundation, not only learn the truth, but also grow by it into the image of Christ.

The apostle continues in Ephesians 3:

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles—if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets. (Ephesians 3:1-5)

Paul uses the subject of God's grace toward the Gentiles as a way to get across, not only that he preached the true gospel, but also how truth comes into the church of God. It is very simple: God revealed something to him, and he, then, wrote it down in a few words, so that we could read and comprehend his understanding of this mystery of God's way. That is how it works. God inspired a prophet or an apostle, and he wrote it down. Over time, it became Scripture, and now we read it, using the Holy Spirit that God has given us, to understand the truth.

At the end of the Bible, in Revelation 22:18-19, John warns the reader not to add to or take away from the words written in the Book. Essentially, he is telling us that revelation from God to man is closed; the canon of Scripture is complete. What we need to know for salvation is in the finished work of the Bible. Anyone who claims to have a new revelation, that he has some "new truth" beyond Scripture, is a false teacher, one of those who "pervert the gospel of Christ."

So the Bible is the collected writings of the apostles and prophets to whom God gave His precious revelation for all of us to learn and use. God's converted children do not need any advanced degrees, courses in higher thinking and logic, or any kind of worldly help to understand God's truth. All they need is the Word of God and a humble mind that can reason normally, and God, by the gifts of His Spirit, provides the understanding.

The Gospel Jesus Preached

Over the passing centuries since Jesus lived, traditional Christianity has unfortunately obscured many of the teachings of Scripture. In some cases, this veiling of certain truths has been deliberate—for instance, in the doctrines of justification and of the Sabbath—while others have been allowed to fade from memory or to be eclipsed by emphasis on other doctrines. The early Roman Catholic Church bears much of the blame for these significant changes, having decreed through their councils that Roman Christianity would follow paths contrary to God’s Word.

The gospel that Jesus taught during His ministry is one such area that has been purposefully diverted from scriptural reality. Ask any nominal Christian what Jesus’ gospel was, and the answer is likely to be, “He preached a gospel of grace” or perhaps, “a gospel of salvation.” Both of these are correct answers but not strictly accurate ones. Many Protestants sit in their pews each week and hear a gospel about Jesus Himself. This, too, is not wrong—certainly, Jesus is central to the gospel—but it is not exactly what the Bible says it is.

Mark 1:14-15 provides the inspired answer to our question: “Now after John [the Baptist] was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel’” (emphasis ours; see also Matthew 4:23; 9:35; 24:14). His message, then, was bigger than grace and salvation—as wonderful as they are—or even bigger than Himself, for that matter. His message was about the reign, the rule, the dominion, of God the Father, as well as of the Son, the One who is to be the King of that Kingdom (see John 18:37; Revelation 19:11-16).

The phrases “Kingdom of God” and “Kingdom of Heaven” are found over a hundred times in the New Testament, the majority of them in the four gospels. “Kingdom of Grace” never appears, nor—to the surprise of many—does “gospel of grace.” “Gospel of peace” is found twice, in Romans 10:15 and Ephesians 6:15, both probably echoing Isaiah 52:7 and Nahum 1:15. In Ephesians 1:13, Paul calls it “the gospel of your salvation.” Yet, by far, the gospel is most often called “the gospel of Christ,” “the gospel of God,” or something similar. From the Bible’s own wording, then, we can conclude that the divinely inspired gospel is about the Kingdom of God.

“The gospel of the Kingdom of God” encompasses grace, faith, redemption, justification, sanctification, salvation, glorification, and all the other doctrines of Christianity because all of these teachings comprise the major tenets of God’s way of life and the process of fulfilling His plan for humanity. The Kingdom of God is the goal of God’s great purpose, and if we desire to have a part in it with Him, it must be our goal too. Jesus’ preaching of the gospel of the Kingdom of God provides us with our objective, as well as with all of the component parts needed to reach it.

As many know, the word “gospel” derives from an Old English word, gödspel, which literally means “good news” or “good tidings.” Thus, when Christ preached, He proclaimed the good news of the soon-coming Kingdom of God. But, some may wonder, is this not God’s world? Is He not its Creator? Is He not sovereign of the entire universe? Why, then, did Jesus have to announce that God’s dominion was on its way?

The answer is simple: This is not God’s world! Yes, He created it. Yes, He governs all things. However, from the time of Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden, God and man have effectively been separated from each other. The holy God cannot abide sin: “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you,” declares Isaiah 59:2. In turn, sin has made humanity hold God at arm’s length for thousands of years, and man’s banishment of God from his life has resulted in his perpetually miserable condition: war, poverty, disease, deception, distrust, and death.

Taking advantage of the vacuum, as it were, Satan the Devil has enthroned himself “the god of this age” and blinded the minds of men and women to the truths that would set them free (II Corinthians 4:4). He has managed to deceive the whole world (Revelation 12:9), not only about himself, but about God and His way of salvation. This is why, among the first things He had to do, Jesus had to endure the Devil’s temptations and overcome him and them without sinning (Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13). He had to prove Himself superior to Satan’s devices and worthy of His throne over the whole earth and all mankind.

Luke in particular shows the link between Jesus’ overcoming of Satan and His preaching of the gospel of the Kingdom of God. Just three verses after the end of the temptation narrative, Luke recounts the episode of Jesus’ announcement of His Messiahship in Nazareth’s synagogue (Luke 4:16-21). He quotes from Isaiah 49:8-9, which provide His job assignment:

The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD. (Luke 4:18-19)

His mission, He says, is to preach the good news to the spiritually poor people of this world, whom Satan has imprisoned and deceived, and to begin the process of freeing them from the oppression of sin. He would proclaim liberty from their debt of sin, just as the year of Jubilee freed the Israelites from their financial debts (Leviticus 25:8-12). The Jubilee is a type of Christ’s thousand-year reign, often called the Millennium, which will begin with His second coming and the binding of Satan (see Revelation 20:1-6).

The gospel of the Kingdom of God balances these present and future elements of God’s purpose. By His calling, God is selecting a few chosen servants to be the firstfruits of His Kingdom (John 6:44; Matthew 22:14; James 1:18; Revelation 14:4). These elect, who believe the gospel, are put through the process of salvation: They hear God’s Word, believe, repent of their sins, are baptized, and receive the gift of God’s Holy Spirit. God forgives and justifies them through His grace, and then they become sanctified both by the imputation of Christ’s holiness as well as through the lifelong process of overcoming their sins, growth in righteousness, and bearing fruit of godliness. At Christ’s return, they will be resurrected and changed into spirit, given eternal life, and glorified as God’s sons and daughters. They, as the Bride of Christ forever (Revelation 19:7-9), will reign as kings and priests (Revelation 5:10).

Such is the gist of Jesus’ message of good tidings to mankind. In reality, it is the message of the entire Bible—God’s wonderful plan of salvation and the establishment of His everlasting Kingdom.