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THE KING’S BUSINESS
God (Mark 7:13). In using the Old Tes tament Scriptures as a final court of appeal, Paul was following in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus. v. 3. "Opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen (that it behooved the Christ to suffer and to arise) again from the dead: and that this Jesus whom I preach (whom, said he, I proclaim) unto you, is (add, the) Christ.” In Paul’s reasoning from the Scriptures he emphasized three points in his opening (or expounding) and proclamation of the truth therein contained. The first point was that “the Christ must suffer.” This was not the conception of the Christ the Jews at that time held. They only noticed those passages in the Old Testament that presented the Christ as an all-conquering king, overlooking those that speak of Him as an atoning Saviour. In these days we have gone to the other extreme and emphasize only those prophecies that set forth the coming Christ as an atoning Sav iour, and many teachers have quite over topped the many other passages that pre dict tlie Christ as a conquering king. Why it was necessary that Christ “must suffer” we see in the Old Testament prediction of Him in Isaiah S3:5, 6 , and in the New Tes tament explanation of Old Testament prophecies and types (see for example, Matt. 26:28; Heb. 9:22; John 19:36, 3 7 ). The second point that Paul made was that Christ “must arise again from the dead” This, too, he proved from the Old Testa ment as Peter did on the day of Pentecost. He probably used the same passage of .Scripture that Peter used for the. purpose (cf. Acts 2:24-36). The third point he made was (and it was for the purpose of this third point that he made the first two) that “this Jesus whom I proclaim unto you is the Christ. This same kind of preach ing is needed today. There are many in these days who wish to substitute some other Jesus.; for the one whom Paul preached, some Jesus of their own con ception or fancy, and not the actual or his toric Jesus. But it is one Jesus and one
Jesus only who is the Christ, that is the Jesus presented to us in the four gospels, who wasj also the Jesus that Paul preached. He and He alone fulfills the Old Testament predictions regarding the Christ. There are many who say, “I believe in Christ,” who,, if you question them closely, do not believe in the Christ of the Scriptures, but some quite different Christ of their own fancy. The Jesus whom Christian Scien tists believe to be the Christ is not at all ibe Jesus that Paul preached, but the Jesus whom Paul preached, the Jesus presented to -us in the four gospels, is the Christ, and He only is the .Christ. Any other Christ than the Jesus of the four gospels is a false Christ, an anti-christ. As it is a fact as Paul here declares,.that the Jesus whom he preached is the Christ, it'is of the high est importance that we accept Him as such and that we accept no other Jesus and no other Christ. If we do not accept this Jesus whom Paul preached as the Christ, an awful weight of guilt rests upon us (Acts 2:34-37; 3:22, 23).. Paul in both the method and substance of his preaching set an example worthy, of all imitation by modern missionaries and by modern preachers. Seemingly he left politics entirely alone.; Politics in Thessalonica were in a bad enough way and there was sore enough need of reform, but Paul did not preach either politics or reform, he went deeper, he went to' the root of things. If men and women can be led to see that the Jesus of the four gospels is the Christ, and be led to accept Him as the Christ, as their anointed King, their politics will be all right. v. 4. And some of them believed (were persuaded), and consorted with Paul and Silas: and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a fe w ” God blessed the kind of preaching that Paul did. As the fesult of his preach ing “some believed.” That is the usual result when the pure gospèl is preached -in the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul in writing at a later date to these same believ ers in Thessalonica refers to how the gos-
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