Paul, The Apostle of Grace

By Tammy Lacock

“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.” (Ephesians 3:1-2 KJV)

In this week’s podcast, Warren Litzman makes it clear that the Apostle Paul is the apostle of grace because he tells us throughout his epistles that we are now living in the dispensation of grace.

Christ raised up only Paul to preach God’s grace. He knew, by revelation, that in this new dispensation, which started at the cross, we are no longer bound by the law (the previous dispensation), but we are saved by God’s grace through the planting of Christ in anyone who believes in Him. There is nothing we can do or not do to be pleasing to God. He is pleased by our being born again to a new life in His Son.

By His Grace, we need only to believe!

Our old life was crucified with Christ, and we arose with Him to a new life in Him. We are brand new creations in Christ. In fact, Paul tells us many times in his epistles that we are now in Christ, our old lives have passed away.

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20 KJV)

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17 KJV)

Warren lists the five previous dispensations as:

1. Innocence (Adam and Eve),
2. Consciousness (Cain and Able),
3. Human Government (Noah),
4. Promise (Abraham), and
5. Law (Israel).

Each time, God gave man a new chance at relationship with Him; and each time man failed, ending each time with judgement. In this current dispensation of grace, we are seemingly also failing because the churches aren’t preaching grace. Rather, they are commingling law and grace. Even the disciples and New Testament writers like Peter, James, and John were preaching the law of the previous dispensation, and at times commingling law and grace. They hadn’t moved fully into the dispensation of grace Paul tells us we are in now. Paul was the only apostle who preached God’s grace. He tells us in Ephesians 3:1-2 that Christ revealed to him that this dispensation of grace, God’s next attempt for human beings to be who He wanted them to be, is upon us and he is sharing it with us.

So why aren’t churches preaching grace? Why aren’t they preaching that we are only saved by God’s grace and not by anything we do or don’t do in an attempt to be pleasing in His eyes? Why aren’t they following Paul’s lead?

“Follow me as I follow Christ.” (1 Corinthians 1:11)

It’s taken us over 2,000 years for us to finally begin to know and understand Paul’s gospel of grace. We have been living by the law, rather than by God’s grace. Paul tells us that no longer is God depending on us to be redeemed. By His grace, we need only to believe in Christ to be saved and born again. We are saved only by His life, the seed of Christ now living in us.

The more we dive into Paul’s epistles and allow the Holy Spirit to continually renew our old minds from the law to the amazing grace of God and His Son who literally now lives in us, the more we will know and understand who we are and what God is doing today. Paul’s gospel tells us that the seed of Christ is now in us, and we are brand new creations. By God’s grace, we are His bona fide children! We are now complete in Christ and free to be who God created us to be.

“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.” (Ephesians 2:8-9 KJV)

“To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27 KJV)