210 - GOD’S BUILDING AND THE FOREMANJanuary 17, 1960
Henry F. Kulp
Ephesians 2: 17 - 22 And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
Ephesians 3: 1 - 5 For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;
Last week we told you that Paul told us we had access to God the Father under this new message that God is revealing. This is something brand new that the Old Testament saints knew nothing whatsoever about—direct access to God. Then we showed you that we are saints, fellow-citizens of the most holy place, which is Heaven. Then God reveals to us that He is erecting a building—the Holy Spirit becomes a Builder, and He is erecting the habitation of God, the temple of God. This habitation of God, this building of God is made up of saved individuals. Not made up of a building of stone, brick, mortar, and plaster, and every time someone is saved, the Holy Spirit puts him in this building.
1/ This Building is still growing, it is still being built—it is not finished yet. You may ask me, when will this building be finished? I believe it will soon be finished. I believe God the Holy Spirit is entering the last parts of the roof. I believe the habitation of God is just about finished, and then, of course, it will go home to be with God in Heaven.
2/ The Scripture we are interested in this morning is Ephesians 2: 20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
Here we are told that this building, this habitation of God, this temple of God, is built upon the foundation—and, of course, we know from Scripture, the Foundation is none other then Jesus Christ, and this Foundation, Jesus Christ has been laid by the apostles and prophets, they are not the foundation, but the ones who are laying the foundation.
We told you the apostles and prophets here are not the prophets of the Old Testament, for they knew nothing whatsoever about this message. Nor is it here speaking of the Twelve Apostles, for Apostles and Prophets are gifts of the resurrected Christ to His Church. Apostles means sent-ones, and prophets mean those who are foretellers—not foretelling the future, but rather foretelling the message that God has here.
3/ So this building that is being erected, this church of God, this habitation of God, is built by the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Sprit uses those who spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ and lead people into a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and in that sense they are helping to build the temple.
4/ God has many buildings that He has erected. He has had many helpers as these buildings have been erected. He has always had a foreman over these buildings—those who pass along His instructions to those who were erecting His buildings.
5/ Remember that God told Noah to build an ark. God said to Noah, Genesis 6: 14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
Make thee an ark of gopher wood—and so forth. Noah built that ark strictly according to a Divine Pattern. God told him to build that ark, and even today boat-makers are astounded at the proportions of this ark. It was in perfect proportion. Noah didn’t know anything about boats, he didn’t know anything about sailing, but God does, and so God gave him the pattern for this building, the ark of God. I want you to remember that Noah was the foreman. He had many helpers, evidently many carpenters who helped him.
6/ This ark was to be judgement-proof.
Hebrews 11: 7 By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
Then we have another building which is the tabernacle. God instructed Moses.
Hebrews 8: 5 Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.
7/ God told him when he was in the mount, that he was to build this building according to the pattern shown to him. Moses was to be the foreman, he had many who like the apostles and prophets were to help him erect the building.
Exodus 39: 42, 43 And here it says, According to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so the children of Israel made all the work. And Moses did look upon all the work, and, behold, they had done it as the Lord had commanded, even so had they done it: and Moses blessed them.
7/ God had another foreman for His building. The building called the Temple. His name was King Solomon.
I Kings 5: 3 - 5 Thou knowest how that David my father could not build an house unto the name of the Lord his God for the wars which were about him on every side, until the Lord put them under the soles of his feet. But now the Lord my God hath given me rest on every side, so that there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent. And, behold, I purpose to build an house unto the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord spake unto David my father, saying, Thy son, whom I will set upon thy throne in thy room, he shall build an house unto my name.
Here Salomon tells us that David could not build a house for the Lord, because of the wars and the turmoil about him. But now God had set that all aside, and Solomon is now going to build the temple, he is going to be the foreman. And, of course, he built this house according to God’s plans. Solomon was the foreman and the leader of all the workers, just as today we have the Apostles and Prophets. But these workers received all the instruction from Solomon, the foreman.
8/ Then we read, Acts 15: 16 After this I will return and build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen down.
This is a very large building that will mean much to this world. And so here the foreman for the erecting of this building will be David and Christ.
9/ But now let us go to the habitation that God is building right now. Not a building of stone, or of mortar, or of brick, or plaster, but a building made of living stones, individuals who believe in Jesus Christ. The apostles and prophets are laying the foundation and who is the foreman? The foreman is none other then the Apostle Paul.
I Corinthians 3: 10 According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master-builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
You can see that God had foremen, Noah, Solomon, Christ and David, Christ and Paul. Now God’s faithful foremen have always worked according to blue-prints and specifications, they built according to God’s pattern.
10/ It is too bad that many today are not willing to build according to this pattern. It is too bad that many today have ignored the foreman on the job, Christ and the Apostle Paul. They are not building according to a Kingdom plan, but according to a Church plan–a body of Christ, the habitation of God, the house of God.
11/ Now we come to the third chapter with all this in mind. Paul is God’s foreman. He is the one who has raised the foundation of the truth of the body of Christ, the present Church. He, of course, has many workers the Lord has given to the church, Apostles and prophets to spread the truth. Then Paul goes on to tell about how he became foreman of this truth, of this building.
12/ Now notice in Ephesians 3: 1 Paul says, I am the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles.
Why is he a prisoner? Why is he in prison? Because of this new message, because he is the foreman of this message. Why did Paul have to spend much time in each epistle proving that he was the Apostle? Because this message was new and it was rejected by most, and he was in prison because of this message. Not because he disobeyed God and went to the Holy City.
13/ You will remember that in his testimony from the Temple stairs in the Holy City, he announced that he had been commanded of the Lord to go to the Gentiles, and the Jewish leaders were stirred to great depth when they heard him say this—and at that word they cried out, “Away with such a fellow from the earth. It is not fit for him to live.”
Acts 22: 22 And they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live.
We, therefore, who are Gentiles by birth have a very special reason to be grateful to Paul’s faithfulness in proclaiming the purpose of God according to this program. Not a Kingdom, but a body, a building, the house of God.
14/ Paul, as the foreman, was in prison because of what was taught, and what he taught here was not something that was known before. It certainly was different from what had been revealed by the Twelve Apostles. You say, did they ever teach this truth? I believe very definitely that they did, after they heard Paul reveal it. There was a difference between the Gospel of circumcision and the Gospel of uncircumcision.
Let us look at Galatians 2: 6, 7 But of these who seemed to be somewhat, (whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me; God accepteth no man's person:) for they who seemed to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me: But countrariwise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter;
Paul says at the end of the 6th verse, for they seemed to be somewhat—that is Peter, James and John added nothing to me—they didn’t add a thing to me—that is what the context of this Scripture at this point. They didn’t tell me a thing, but in the 7th verse he says, but contrariwise—what does that mean? It means that he added something to them, something they knew nothing whatsoever about. Then he says, when they saw—they saw something added to them, when they saw that the Gospel of uncircumcision was committed unto me, and the Gospel of circumcision was to Peter.
Some want to get in here and make a play on words in the Greek—it is the Gospel to the uncircumcision, and the Gospel to the circumcised, but that doesn’t prove a thing. We don’t base that there is a difference between these two messages upon that statement there in that sense, but on the context of all that he said in Galatians 1 and 2. He says, I have added something to them, contrariwise, that something they didn’t know, and this is what they saw, that a message to the uncircumcision was different then the message to the circumcision.
15/ Let’s get another proof of that and see exactly what God has to say. Let’s go back to Ephesians 3: 9 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:
Here we have a very important statement—that this which Paul is preaching, this mystery has been hid in God. Observe it was not simply hidden in the Bible. It was not that the Old Testament contained this message and we only needed to dig it out—not so. But that it was hidden in God. Not in the Old Testament, and it could not be apprehended by man until it was divinely revealed, and it was divinely revealed by Paul, and this divine revelation was revealed to Paul in direct revelation as the Scripture tells us, as he tells us in Galatians.
16/ Even angels whether good or bad had no knowledge of this secret—of this message, until it was given by Paul upon earth. Notice, that is what it says in Verse 10.
17/ The message has been hid too long, in this day and age. Folks fail to see it, that is why we have all these different sects, that is why we have all these different teachings. People fail to see the message of the habitation of God, the tabernacle of God, which was revealed to God’s foreman, the Apostle Paul, and he revealed it so that the apostles and prophets could reveal it to others, and it is revealed to us through the Word at this present time.
18/ Again, I want you to notice, Ephesians 3: 8 Unto me who am less then the least of all saints is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ.
The Greek root of the word means untraceable or cannot track. In other words, you can’t come across this truth by studying from Genesis to Malachi, because it is not there.
19/ That shows us that Paul did contrariwise teach something to the Twelve that they did not know before this time.
20/ Let us get another proof of what Paul taught was not what Peter and the rest taught, and let’s get another proof to see that they had to learn it from Paul.
II Peter 3: 15, 16 For here he says, Even as our beloved brother, Paul, also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you, as also in all his epistles, speaking of these things in which are some things hard to be understood.
So the Twelve Apostles had to learn from Paul what was the Gospel of the uncircumcision.
21/ What is the mystery which in other ages was hidden from the son of men? What is the main message? We are told in Ephesians 3: 6 that the Gentiles shall be fellow-heirs and of the same body, and part-takers of His body in Christ by the Gospel. In what way does this differ from the Old Testament declaration? That God would bless the Gentiles through Israel? There is a great difference according to the Old Testament prophets, the day is coming when Israel will be restored to covenant relationship with God, and will be brought into a place of special blessing here upon the earth, and the Gentiles nations living at that time will be blessed with and in subjection to them, but the great truth that Paul reveals in our age is that God is now calling out a people for the heavens to be the body of Christ, and there will be neither group in the place of prominence.
22/ Let us look at another portion of Scripture that shows us that ministry of the Apostle Paul.
I Timothy 2: 6, 7 Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not;) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity.
Here the Apostle speaks of himself as a preacher, and an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles, and he uses the strong expression—I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie.
23/ This message of Jew and Gentile being on an equal plain is entirely different, isn’t it? From what was revealed before. Compare Jew and Gentile being on the same plain with what we have in Mark 7: 26 - 29 The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs. And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs. And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter.
And here was a women, a Greek, not a Jew, notice it says by nation, brought to Him, and asking Him that He would cast forth the demon out of her daughter, but Jesus said unto her, let the children be filled first. Here the nation has the pre-eminence, it has the spot of importance, the children had to be fed first, and then the Gentiles were to receive something, and He said, it is not meat that they should take the children’s bread and cast it unto the dogs, but she said, the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs, and He said, for this saying, go thy way, the demon is cast out of her.
This is entirely a different picture here in Ephesians 3: 6 That the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:
Then we have in Mark 7 a picture that was not known in days gone by. This is the message that Paul brings forth.
24/ Let us look at the mystery in different ways. The main mystery is the body of Christ, this building, habitation of God, but it has many side issues which are called mysteries as well. Let us just consider the rapture, when the church will be caught up with Jesus Christ.
I Corinthians 15: 51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
There Paul says, behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye.
Jesus Christ never revealed the rapture, neither did anyone else but the Apostle Paul, and that is his message, this message was hid in God until it was revealed.
25/ Then also, Romans 11: 25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
He tells us the mystery of the casting aside of the nations, the message in days gone by was that Israel should have a prominent place and the Gentile nations would be in subjection to her when she was in her rightful place. Restored in covenant relationship with God. This casting aside is a mystery here—that the Gentiles should come in. This is something else that was hid in God, and is now revealed.
26/ The Nations had to be set aside as God is now dealing with individuals, Jews and Gentiles alike. In the future after the Rapture of His Church the Body of Christ, (which can happen at any moment) He will once again deal with the Nations through their relationship with the Nation Israel. All blessings will flow from and through the Nation Israel with Messiah as its King.
Romans 16: 25, 26 Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith:
Here we read that the preaching of Jesus Christ should be according to this mystery, this new truth, not according to that which has been in days gone by.
AMEN
Ref: 01/17/1960 / 210 - GOD’S BUILDINGS AND THE FOREMEN / 10/01/2020
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