The Book of Acts Transitional

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But here we must pause and contemplate for a moment our apostle as a prisoner in the imperial city. The gospel had now been preached from Jerusalem to Rome. Great changes had taken place in the dispensational ways of God. The book of the Acts is transitional in its character. The Jews, we see, are now set aside, or rather they have set themselves aside by their rejection of that which God was setting up. The counsels of His grace towards them, no doubt, abide forever sure; but in the meantime they are cast off, and others come in and take the place of blessed relationship with God. Paul was a witness of God's grace to Israel; he was himself an Israelite, but also chosen of God to introduce something entirely new—the Church, the body of Christ, "Whereof I was made a minister.... that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ." (Eph. 3:7-97Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power. 8Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; 9And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: (Ephesians 3:7‑9).) This new thing set aside all distinction between Jew and Gentile, as sinners and in the oneness of this body. The hostility of the Jews to these truths never abated, as we have fully seen; and the results of this enmity we have also seen. The Jews disappear from the scene entirely; and the church becomes the vessel of God's testimony on the earth, and His habitation by the Spirit. (Eph. 2:2222In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:22).) Individual Jews, of course, who believe in Jesus, are blessed in connection with a heavenly Christ and the "one body;" but Israel for a time is left without God, and without present communication with Him. The Epistles to the Romans and to the Ephesians fully set forth this doctrine (especially Romans chapters 9, 10, 11). We now return to