One of the chief reasons why so many sincere religious people are left in doubt and uncertainty as to salvation is because the organized Church has rebelled against a distinct and important revelation from God to us who live in this present age. This revelation is found in the inspired words of Paul, in Rom. 11:13:
βFor I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles. I magnify mine office.β
Many minimize that which the Word of God magnifies here. They insist upon following Peter rather than Paul, failing to see that Peterβs authority concerned the now-rejected kingdom of Christ on earth over Israel and the nations. Our Lord had said to His twelve apostles:
βVerily 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 ISRAELβ (Matt. 19:28).
Surely there are no twelve tribes in the Church today, nor was any provision, specific or implied, made by our Lord for βapostolic succession.β This dogma is built upon the unscriptural assumption that the Church today is the kingdom which Christ established when on earth, and that our ministry today is but a perpetuation of that which the twelve began.
The fact is that the ministry of the twelve was halted by the rejection of the King and His kingdom and that the apostles themselves finally agreed to turn their proposed Gentile ministry over to Paul, that other apostle, to whom had been committed βthe gospel of the grace of Godβ (Read carefully, Gal. 2:2-9 and Acts 20:24).
If only the confused religious masses could see that when Israel joined the Gentiles in rebellion against God, when the worldβs sin had risen to its height and all was ready for judgment, God revealed βthe exceeding riches of His graceβ by saving Saul, the chief of sinners, and sending him forth as both the herald and the living example of His grace (Rom. 5:20,21)! source
[β¦] goes with being βa good soldier of Jesus Christ.β In his last words, just before his execution, the Apostle Paul declared triumphantly: βI have fought a good fight!β (II Tim. 4:7). It was indeed βa good [β¦]