To understand the Bible we must come to grips with the fact that God is sovereign. We must allow God to be Who He is and believe by faith that He means what He says. When traditions and man-made theology mix law and grace, Israel and the Body of Christ, the gospel of the kingdom and the gospel of grace, Peter and Paul, you end up with confusion and division.

The Bible is a progressive revelation it wasn’t all dealt out at once to Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses or the apostle Peter. God is the same and will never change but how He dealt with mankind through Biblical history changed significantly.

For the first 2000 years, God dealt with all mankind directly and everyone spoke one language (Genesis 11:1). Then He made a change and chose just one man out of millions to start a new race of people for Himself (Deuteronomy 32:8-9). God has dealt with Jews with only (7 exceptions) for 2000 years. Dividing mankind by Jew and Gentile with the Gentile world without hope and no access to God (Ephesians 2:11,12). Then the sovereign God makes another change by choosing another man, Paul, (Acts 9:15; Acts 20:24; Galatians 1:11,12) with a new message of salvation for Jews and Gentiles apart from the Mosaic law and temple worship.

God is the same throughout all generations. But His methods of dealing with mankind through those generations have changed. When God deals with mankind He prescribes exactly what it is we need to do and how to do it and what God has commanded has changed through time.

For example, believers today don’t have a Tree of Life to feed on. Nor do we have to buy sheep and fly to Israel for temple worship every time we sin.

To gain a true understanding of the word of God one must recognize these changes, and identify what is doctrine and what is for our learning (Romans 15:4). We read and study the entire Bible and make applications where allowed. But as for our gospel today and doctrine for the Body of Christ it can only be found in the writings of God’s chosen apostle to the Gentiles, Paul.

Even the apostle Peter at the very end of his great ministry admonishes his readers to go to Paul’s epistles for things regarding salvation. (2 Peter 3:14-18) Why doesn’t Peter just tell his readers to believe what he did for salvation? That “Jesus was the Christ the Son of God” (Matthew 16:16,17). Why doesn’t Peter say remember what Jesus said at the Sermon on the Mount? Why doesn’t Peter say refer to what he said at Pentecost?

The answer is simple God made a change and Peter recognized that Paul was given new revelations regarding salvation and doctrine directly from the ascended Lord Himself (Acts 15:11; Galatians 1:11,12). I pray that the Lord opens the eyes of people so that they can see the significance of what Peter is saying in 2 Peter 3:14-18.

God is sovereign. He does as He pleases. Dealing solely with Jews and the promise of the King and the kingdom, then dealing with both Jews and Gentiles, revealing the gospel of the grace of God to the Gentiles, while casting aside His chosen people and returning to Israel are His prerogatives. All we have to do is believe it.

Faith, Sine Qua Non.

Thank you for reading.

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Jamie Pantastico