Pauline Authority

Sadly, Paul's place in the plan of God as being ‘the Moses of the age of grace’ to "the body of Christ" is not known by many. The confusion in the Church today is basically the result of her rebellion against the authority of Paul as the Lord’s one divinely-appointed Apostle for the present "dispensation of the grace of God" (Eph. 3:1-3). Thus Paul has largely been marginalized in the church at large today. Many try to twist Paul's words of "the gospel of the grace of God" (Act 20:24) for the "body of Christ" to try and make them fit the message of "the Law" and works for "the circumcision (Israel)" but they don't fit at all. Sadly, as Peter wrote, they do this unto their own destruction.

"And account that the longsuffering (delay) of our Lord (His 2nd coming for Israel) is (opportunity for) salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; 16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest (twist), as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction." (2 Peter 3:15-16)

On every hand Paul is erroneously referred to as just ‘one of the apostles,’ sometimes even as one of "the twelve," though the record of Scripture proves that Paul could not possibly have qualified as one of "the twelve." This below was the requirement for choosing Mathias.

"And Jesus said unto them (the twelve), Verily I say unto you, That ye which have ‘followed me,’ in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Matthew 19:28)

Obviously Paul (as Saul) was not a ‘follower’ of Jesus of Nazareth in His earthy ministry to His earthly people, Israel (Rom 15:8). This below is written of Paul, even after Pentecost, wherein Paul was out to "slaughter the Lord's disciples."

"And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest," (Acts 9:1)

Yet in Paul's ministry after his glorious conversion on that road to Damascus, Paul is “the” Christ-appointed "Apostle to the Gentiles" (Rom 11:13, cf. Rom 15:16). Paul received his gospel by which men ‘shall be judged’ from the ascended Lord. "In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my (Paul's) gospel." (Romans 2:16). Here Paul tells us the words that he writes are the commandments of the Lord in this age of grace.

"If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I (Paul) write unto you are the commandments of the Lord." (1 Corinthians 14:37 (KJV)

In Galatians 1 and 2 the Apostle Paul throws down the certificate of his apostleship, as it were, to those who questioned it in his day. He opens his argument with this declaration.

"…I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of (from) Jesus Christ" (Gal. 1:11-12).

The Scriptures teach beyond the shadow of a doubt that Paul's apostleship and message were absolutely unique and separate from that of "the twelve" or of any who had preceded him. This is what Christendom as a whole has refused to accept. Is it any wonder, then, that they confuse God's prophesied "kingdom" program promised to Israel with that of Paul's "mystery" program of grace for the "body of Christ." The “revelation of the mystery (Gk., musterion, God’s secret plan)that was committed to Paul for us in this present “dispensation of the grace of God” that extends until the rapture of “His body” closes this age?

The Scriptures emphasize not only the Apostle's constant use of the first person pronoun, "I," "me," "my," but the unique character of his Apostleship and message. Ignore these facts and confusion must inevitably result... accept it, and a hundred seeming contradictions in Scripture will immediately disappear.