The Bible is the complete divinely inspired word of God, His letter written to us with the help of men who were borne of the Holy Spirit, and every book in the Bible is God’s speaking, focusing on God’s economy, His eternal plan. In His sovereignty, God has allowed certain books to be in the Bible, while others are not there (also called, “the Biblical Apocrypha”).
In God’s sovereign arrangement, the Apostle Paul wrote 14 of the 27 books of the New Testament, and his writings are the heart of the New Testament; he is the only one who speaks of the mystery of God’s economy which was hidden in His heart and revealed through the apostles and prophets, and he reveals many wonderful matters related to God’s salvation, God’s economy, the processed Triune God, the Spirit, the indwelling Christ, transformation, the church, the Body of Christ, and the one new man.
When it comes to the gospel, it is inadequate to think that only Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John had something to say concerning it; Paul also wrote extensively concerning the gospel, which he even calls “my gospel” and “the gospel of God”, and in Paul’s writings there are many items that the four Gospels don’t speak of.
The first four Gospels speak of items such as the kingdom of the heavens, the eternal life of God, the forgiveness of sins, and Christ serving God to save us from our sins, all of which are done by Christ in the flesh.
But Paul in his gospel speaks of Christ as the Spirit who came to indwell us and be our hope of glory, live in us, be formed in us, make His home in us, and cause us to be filled with Christ to be the fulness of God (see Col. 1:27; Gal. 2:20; 4:19; Eph. 3:17-19).
Paul was commissioned by God not only with the gospel but also with completing the word of God, and Paul’s gospel – which is very much neglected in today’s Christianity – is a complete, pure, and perfect gospel, covering God’s plan from His redemption to our glorification and the building up of the church.
We don’t “put down” the first four Gospels, but we need to realize that the complete gospel the New Testament preaches is not composed only of the first four books of the New Testament but it includes the completing gospel of Paul, which is very rich, deep, and profound.
We don’t depreciate the four Gospels but rather enjoy them, get their full benefit, and pray much over them; at the same time, however, we need to emphasize our need to know the fifth gospel, the gospel of Paul.
Paul’s Gospel concerns Christ as the Spirit Living in us after His Resurrection
Paul didn’t receive the gospel from man; he was not taught the gospel by the other apostles, but he received it through revelation of Jesus Christ, and what he spoke of was not Christ in the flesh but Christ as the Spirit who today lives within the believers after His resurrection (see Rom. 1:1, 9; 8:9-10).
This is higher and more subjective than what was presented in the Gospels, where we see Christ in the flesh living among His disciples after His incarnation and before His death and resurrection.
In Paul’s writings we see not an objective Christ who once lived on earth to accomplish God’s purpose but a subjective Christ who as the Spirit lives within His believers to be their life and their everything as their subjective Savior.
Christ has resurrected and has become the life-giving Spirit indwelling the believers (see 1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17-18; Rom. 8:10), and Paul’s gospel is the gospel of the One who is now indwelling us, His believers, to be our subjective Savior. As our subjective Savior, Christ as the Spirit works within us, speaks to us, transforms us, renews us, and conforms us to Christ’s image.
Our Savior is not someone far away in the heaven but One who dwells in us, and our gospel is the gospel of the indwelling Christ as the Spirit. When we are about to have an argument with our spouse, this indwelling Savior gently tells us to not argue; if we simply stop and call on His name, we receive grace, we experience Him, and we are much more saved in His life from murmurings, reasonings, and arguments.
In the family life arguments are inevitable, but if we listen to the Lord’s inward speaking, turn to Him, and even pray about “how wrong” our spouse is, the Lord has a way to remove our anger and hurt feelings.
As believers in Christ we need to experience our subjective indwelling Savior who now lives in us as the Spirit, and we need to preach the gospel of the living Christ within us.
Because Christ lives in us as the Spirit, the gospel we preach is powerful – it is like a force that can break any obstacle, because the resurrected Christ as the life-giving Spirit lives in us, speaks through us, and brings salvation to all those who believe (Rom. 1:1, 16).
Lord, thank You for coming into us to dwell in us and live in us as our subjective Savior, saving us day by day from within. Praise You Lord for becoming the life-giving indwelling Spirit who now is in us renewing us and transforming us every day. We want to listen to You, give heed to the inner anointing, and stop when You want us to stop. Lord, we want to experience You as our subjective Savior, and we want to preach the gospel of Christ who as the Spirit lives within us after His resurrection! Hallelujah, our Christ is living in us as the Spirit to be our subjective Savior!
Paul’s Gospel speaks of the Spirit as the Seal and the Pledge
From Paul’s gospel, we learn that the Spirit of Christ is a seal and a pledge (2 Cor. 1:22); as the seal, He imprints His image on us and saturates us with His element, and as the pledge, He is the foretaste of our full enjoyment in eternity.
When we were saved, we were sealed by the Holy Spirit; as soon as we believe and call on the name of the Lord, Christ sealed us with His Spirit, and we belong to Him: His name is upon us!
This seal, on the one hand, shows that we belong to the Lord, and on the other, just as the ink of the seal saturates the paper, so God’s elements saturate us to be wrought into us.
The seal is a mark that marks us out as God’s inheritance, God’s possession, as those who belong to God. The pledge is an earnest, guaranteeing that God is our inheritance, or possession, and belongs to us (see footnote 1 on Eph. 1:14). The Spirit within us is the pledge, an earnest, of God as our portion in Christ. God’s attaching us to Christ issues in three things: (1) an anointing that imparts God’s elements into us; (2) a sealing that forms the divine elements into an impression to express God’s image; and (3) a pledging that gives us a foretaste as a sample and guarantee of the full taste of God. Through these three experiences of the anointing Spirit, with the experience of the cross, the ministry of Christ is produced. (2 Cor. 1:22, footnote 3, Recovery Version)
Amen! This seal is not a one-time event; whenever we call on the name of the Lord, open to Him, meet with the saints, and read the Bible with an open heart, the Lord seals us with His Spirit a little more.
We were sealed before Him unto the day of our redemption (Eph. 4:30), and we are daily being continually sealed until God’s element saturates our being to make us His and like Him fully – this is the day of our redemption.
Also, at the time of our regeneration, we have received the Spirit as a pledge, a foretaste of the full taste of God, and now we daily need to enjoy the Spirit through the exercise of our spirit so that we may enter into the full enjoyment of our inheritance.
Hallelujah, God is our inheritance, and today we can have a foretaste of how good, wonderful, sweet, and rich our processed and consummated Triune God is by enjoying the Lord through the exercise of our spirit!
Lord Jesus, we are Yours: we were marked out by You, You put the Spirit as a seal on us, and we now belong to You. Hallelujah, we belong to Jesus, and daily we are being sealed by Him to have all His elements wrought into our being! Amen! Oh Lord, we want to enjoy You as the Spirit, the pledge of our inheritance. We want to enjoy the earnest, the pledge, of the Spirit day by day until we enter into the full enjoyment of our inheritance – the processed and consummated Triune God – for eternity!
Paul’s Gospel concerns Christ as the Head and the Church as His Body
Another element unique to Paul in his gospel is Christ as the head and the church as His Body (see Col. 1:18; Eph. 1:22-23). Peter spoke of shepherding the flock of God as overseers, just as Christ is the Shepherd of our souls, and John spoke of Christ being the vine and we are the branches abiding in Him, but neither of them spoke of the Body of Christ.
In his Epistles, Paul tells us that we, the believers in Christ, are members of the Body of Christ: Christ is the Head, we are His Body, and we hold Him as the Head, receive our growth and function from the Head, and grow up into Him in all things for the building up of the Body of Christ.
This matter of the Body of Christ is deep, high, and very applicable, but unless we appreciate and enter into the completing gospel of Paul, we do not have a proper understanding and experience of the Body.
May the Lord bring us on with Him, and may He enlarge our vision to see the completing gospel of Paul to realize that we are members of the Body of Christ, Christ is the Head, and everything we do should be for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ!
When we see the Body of Christ, the gospel we preach will not only be of Christ but also of the church as His Body; we will speak of the great mystery, Christ and the church, for the fulfillment of God’s eternal economy.
Lord, thank You for revealing to us that You are the Head and we are the many members of Your Body. Thank You for such a high view of the gospel, which includes not only Christ but also the Body of Christ. Lord, may our gospel preaching be uplifted; may we be those who preach a complete and high gospel according to Your standard, speaking to others concerning the all-inclusive wonderful Christ and the church as His Body.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message for this week, and Life-study of Galatians, pp. 15-17 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Gospel (2016 International Chinese-speaking Conference), week 4 / msg. 4, Paul’s Gospel — the Gospel of Completion.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Oh what a joy! Christ now lives in us; / No longer I—how glorious! / He’s daily growing within us / Till He is formed in us. / We live and walk by the Spirit, / Enjoy the fruit of the Spirit; / To Him our whole lives we commit; / All else is vanity. (Song on Christ living in us)
# The Holy Spirit is the seal, / The foretaste, earnest, and the pledge. / He designates us as God’s own / And guarantees our heritage. / ’Twas after we believed in Christ, / The word of truth, the gospel, heard, / The Holy Spirit us did seal / To show that we belong to God. (Hymns #1120)
# Lord, to know Thee as the Body, / Is my desperate need today, / Oh, to see Thee in Thy members, / ’Tis for this I long and pray. / No more just to know Thy headship / In an individual way, / But to see Thee incarnated, / As the Body-Christ, I pray. (Hymns #1225)
About aGodMan
In his Epistles Paul also tells us that we are members of the Body of Christ. He speaks of Christ as the Head and of the church as the Body. Such terms cannot be found in the writings of Peter or John. If we could tell Peter that the church is the Body of Christ, he might reply, “Where did you hear this? I was close to the Lord Jesus for three and a half years, but I never heard such a word. I heard about the cross and about feeding the Lord’s lambs. In my first Epistle I even charged the elders to shepherd the flock of God. But I have never heard about the Body of Christ.” We must admit that concerning the matter of the Head and the Body, Paul’s vision was higher than Peter’s. Although John tells us that Christ is the vine and that we are the branches, he does not say that Christ is the Head and that we are the Body. This is a further indication that without Paul’s gospel the revelation in the New Testament would not be complete. (Witness Lee, Life-study of Galatians, p. 15)
Amen! Hallelujah! We thank the Lord that He is now the processed consummated Spirit that indwells in us. The anointing One and all inclusive life giving Spirit. Amen!
Amen…Thank you Lord that You became the life giving Spirit so that You can be mingled within us…You became our life supply, without You we will be nothing…I love you Lord..