The Apostle of the Gentiles then comes forth, fraught with further treasures of Divine wisdom, revealing purposes that had been till now (while God was dealing with Israel and the earth) hid in God. He comes forth with this testimony—that Christ and the Church were one; that heaven was their common inheritance, and the gospel committed to him, was the gospel, as he expresses it, of “Christ in us the hope of glory.” This gospel he had now to preach among the Gentiles (Gal. 1:1616To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: (Galatians 1:16); Col. 1:2828Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: (Colossians 1:28)).
We are thus enabled to see the fullness of the times in which the mysteries of God have been revealed. It must be so we know, for God is God. But through His abounding towards us in all wisdom and prudence, He gives us grace to see something of this that we may adore Him, and love Him, and long for the day when we shall see Him face to face, and know as we are known. For all these His ways are beautiful in their season. Israel was the favored earthly people, and it was due to them to try whether or not the fountain would be opened in Jerusalem, from whence to water the earth. But this debt of Israel had now been paid by the ministry of the Lord, closed in by that of the twelve; and Stephen's speech in the 7th of Acts, is God's conviction of Israel's rejection of all the ways which His love had taken with them. They had silenced, as He there charges them, the early voice of God in Joseph—they had refused Moses the deliverer—they had persecuted the prophets—slain John and others, who had showed before of the coming of the Just One—been the betrayers and murderers of that Just One Himself, and, finally, were then in His person resisting, to the end resisting, as they had ever done, the Holy Spirit. The Lord therefore had only to forsake His sanctuary, and with it the earth, and the martyr sees the Lord in heaven under such a form as gives clear notice that the saints were now to have their citizenship in heaven, and their home in the glory there, and not on the earth.
This martyrdom of Stephen was thus a crisis or time of judgment, the final one with Israel; and a new witness to God is therefore called out. There had been already such times in the history of Israel. Shiloh had been the scene of the first crisis. The ark that was there was taken into the enemy's land—the priest and his sons died ingloriously; Ichabod was the character of the system then, and Samuel was called out as Jehovah's new witness—the help of Israel, the raiser of the stone Ebenezer. Jerusalem was afterward the scene of another crisis. The house of David had filled up its sin; the king and the people with all their treasures were taken down to Babylon, and the city laid in heaps and Jesus (for the interval as to this purpose need not be estimated) is called forth, God's new witness —the sure mercy and hope of Israel. But He was refused, and in judgment turned His back upon Jerusalem, saying, “Behold your house is left unto you desolate.” That was a season of judgment also—judgment of Israel for the rejection of the Son of Man; and another witness is then called out—the twelve Apostles, who testify, as I have been observing, in the Holy Spirit, to the resurrection of the rejected Lord, and that repentance and remission of sins were provided in Him for Israel. But they also are rejected and cast out. Then comes the final crisis—Stephen is their representative, and he convicts Israel of full resistance of the Holy Spirit; and then a new and heavenly witness is called forth. Such witness is the Church, and of the Church, and of the Church's special calling and glory, Paul is made in an eminent sense the minister.