Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 22:86 (Apr 1865)
Article: The Permanence Of Christianity in The Intention Of Its Founder
Author: Joseph P. Thompson

BSac 22:86 (April 1865) p. 223

The Permanence Of Christianity in The Intention Of Its Founder1

Joseph P. Thompson

In closing his epistle to the Romans — that compact and comprehensive exposition of the gospel in its adaptation alike to the Jewish and to the Gentile world — the apostle Paul gives, in few words, a summary of Christianity as a final revelation of the one absolute and universal religion. In Rom. 16:25–27, in the condensed phrases of a single sentence — in form a doxology — the origin and the mission of Christianity are set forth in almost every feature and function that could characterize a revelation as being complete and final: its historic continuity in the scriptures; its gradual unveiling through the ages; its concentrated manifestation in the ministry of Christ; the universality of its sphere; the permanence and the absolute supremacy of its office as the religion appointed of God for the enlightenment and the reformation of mankind.

In these particulars, the close of the epistle tallies exactly with its opening.2 There, Paul speaks of the gospel which God “had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures;” and here he describes the gospel as made known or opened up “by the scriptures of the prophets.” There he speaks of Jesus Christ, his incarnation and his resurrection from the dead, as the very “gospel of God”; and here the preaching of Jesus Christ is the full revealing of that “mystery” which though “kept secret” as to the

BSac 22:86 (April 1865) p. 224

time and the manner of it, had been silently unfolding since the world began.3 There, he speaks of himself as having received from Christ an apostleship of this gospel “among all nations”; here, again, he describes the gospel as appointed “to be made known to all nations, by commandment of the everlasting God.” And alike in the opening of the epistle and at its close, to secure a universal obedience to the faith,” as herein declared, is the purpose of God in “giving commandment” for the propagation of the gospel. And this was the very formula by which our Lord defined the object, the method, and the duration of the Christian ministry. “Go make all nations my disciples; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

Clearly, then, in the intention of its founder, and in the conception of its chief expounder and propagandist, the apostle...