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The Scriptures leave no doubt that the Lord Jesus Christ will come to this earth again, “in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God” and who “receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (II Thes. 1:8; 2:10). Nor will He forget His promise to give the twelve apostles thrones in His kingdom (Matt. 19:28). There can be no successors to Peter and the eleven, for they themselves are to reign with Christ in glory. What is happening now is a parenthesis in God’s prophesied program. Delaying Christ’s return to judge and reign. God chose another apostle, separate from the twelve, to bring a message of grace to this Christ-rejecting world. How great is His mercy and love!
And how are men saved today? How are their sins remitted? Must they come to some recognized authority and be “baptized for the remission of sins”? Some, still following Peter rather than Paul, say, “Yes.” But let us see what St. Paul, by divine inspiration, has to say about this.
“FOR BY GRACE ARE YE SAVED, THROUGH FAITH, AND THAT NOT OF YOURSELVES: IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD: NOT OF WORKS, LEST ANY MAN SHOULD BOAST” (Eph. 2:8,9).
“NOT BY WORKS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, WHICH WE HAVE DONE, BUT ACCORDING TO HIS MERCY HE SAVED US, BY THE WASHING OF REGENERATION, AND THE RENEWING OF THE HOLY GHOST” (Titus 3:5).
This stands in striking contrast to Peter’s “Repent and be baptized… for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38). It stands in contrast, also, to the words of the “Great Commission”: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved” (Mark 16:16). Does not this indicate that a change in dispensation took place with the raising up of Paul, that other apostle?
But what about the kingdom? Does some man on earth hold the keys? No, for both the King and His kingdom are in exile. When a sinner obeys God and receives Christ as His Savior he is “translated into the kingdom of His dear Son” (Col. 1:13), and “made accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:6). source
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