‘Standing in the gap’ before God is not for the faint-hearted. When summoned to meet the Lord on the smoking volcano of Mount Sinai Moses said, ‘I exceedingly fear and quake’ (Hebrews 12:21, Exodus 19:16-25). And it was no easy task for him to persuade the Israelites to hear and obey the voice of God thundering at them yet not even touch the mountain lest they ‘perish’.

The Apostle Paul had similar problems. He had received wonderful revelations of God’s plan and purpose in grace and the mystery, much as Moses received revelation of the law. For both men it led to big trouble. For while Moses descended the mount to find Israel worshipping a golden calf for his part Paul was shunned by churches he had founded (2 Timothy 1:15) when he wrote to tell them of the mystery of grace the Lord revealed to him.

The apostle  had been ‘made a minister’ according to ‘the dispensation of God which is given to me for you to fulfil the word of God’ (Colossians 1:24-27). It was his task to tell the world the Lord in highest heaven was now reconciling in peace all people to Himself through the ‘riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles which is Christ in you the hope of glory’.

So, Paul had suffered personally both to receive the message and proclaim it. Accordingly,  when he urged the Colossians to continue in the faith of the ‘hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven, where of I Paul am made a minister’, he said:

Who now rejoice in my SUFFERINGS  for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake which is the church (Colossians 1:24).

Does that mean Paul suffered great pain? Yes, it does. He was chained, imprisoned and put on short rations. But why? Was the atonement of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection somehow insufficient? No, what was lacking was a man to ‘stand in the gap’ and willing to be buffeted for the truth. And Paul was that man.  Indeed, he still stands for us today, speaking to us in his sacred writings preserved in the Bible. For example, he still proclaims:

…the mystery hid from ages and generation is NOW made manifest to his saints which is Christ in you the hope of glory… whom we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working which worketh mightily in me (Colossians 1:26-29).

However, this ‘working’ of Christ in Paul came at a price. The apostle was put under extreme stress:

For I would that ye knew what great CONFLICT I have for you and for them at Laodicea and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh; that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love and unto the all the riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ (Colossians 2:2-2).

Surely, the ‘full assurance of understanding’ that in the mystery Christ now fills us fully with Himself (Ephesians 1:22-23), that He takes us into Himself that we may share in his glory is the best news mankind has ever had. No wonder the devil opposes preaching of it with all his might.  No wonder Paul suffered physically and struggled with inner turmoil. Without him we might never have known of God’s wonderful fully completed salvation.

You see, it is through Paul that Christ as God wrought a huge cosmic change in the way he deals with us humans as rebellious creatures. He now makes peace with us, reconciling us through his blood on the cross; he fully forgives us and pours his spirit and life into us so that we become part of his very nature.

It is important to see that now in the ‘dispensation of the grace of God and  the mystery’ (Ephesians 3:1-4) salvation is now ‘sent unto the Gentiles and they will hear it’ (Acts 28:28). Israel as nation was set aside, its place taken by the ‘one new man’ comprised of Jews and Gentiles who trust Jesus as their personal Saviour and Lord.

Yes, back in the Acts period God saved by grace the ‘remnant’ of Jews that believed Romans 11:5) but in AD 70 caused Jerusalem and its temple to be destroyed. Many Jews were slain and others condemned to slavery or dispersed. Jesus had warned Israel’s leaders the kingdom would be taken from them and given to another people and in AD 70 it was.

Paul was in fact the last Jewish person to see millions of Gentiles converted. Indeed, to this day, through his writings, he still ‘stands in the gap’ for the whole world. It is remarkable that since his death there has not been an outstanding man used by God who has not been a Gentile. Think of Martin Luther, the Wesley brothers, Charles Finney and nearer our time, Billy Graham.

Earlier, in the Acts period, Paul had ‘stood in the gap’ praying to God and pleading with Jews both in Israel and abroad to turn to God to prevent the awful 70 AD judgement outlined above.

Sadly, the once chosen nation did not repent and the ‘veil’ of Moses’ law was still ‘on their hearts’ to the end despite some Gentiles being saved by Paul’s preaching ‘to provoke them to jealousy’. At this time Paul stood so hard ‘in the gap’ for Israel the Lord had to sharply order him to stop:

Make haste and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem; for they will not receive thy testimony concerning Me… Depart for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles (Acts 22: 18-20)

At this time Paul also ‘stood in the gap’ for the ‘abundance of revelations’ he received about all-sufficient grace, about that grace saving both Jew and Gentile through Christ’s blood. He paid the price of ‘dying daily’ to bring the gospel that ‘’Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried and rose again’ (1 Corinthians 15:1-4):

Jewish leaders strove to kill him and false brethren sought to betray him. He also had to oppose the Judaizers who sought to bring the Gentile Christian believers under the thrall of the law:

Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews I five times received 40 stripes save one. Thrice I was beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeying often in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren. In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness (2 Corinthians 11:23-28).

These things, said Paul, came upon him daily along with care of all the churches, whom he loved but complained that the more he loved them the less he found himself loved. And if that wasn’t suffering enough there was more to come, for when the Pentecostal season recorded in Acts closed Paul received a further stupendous revelation of grace and the now manifested mystery that had been hid from all previous ages (Ephesians 3:3-6). And this new ministry caused him to suffer yet again.

It was in these later sufferings that Paul once again ‘stood in the gap’ before God for the most important of reasons. That was to proclaim that God having made peace through the blood of his cross was now ‘reconciling all things unto Himself, whether things in earth or things in heaven (Colossians 1:20) and unveiling the MYSTERY and its special hope of glory.

Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake which is the church. Whereof I am made a minister according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you , to fulfil the word of God. Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations but now is made manifest to his saints… which is Christ in you the hope of glory (Colossians 1:214-27).       

But why did Paul have to ‘fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ’? Certainly not because the Lord’s atonement on the cross was insufficient in any way. No, He paid the price for every human being to be set free. The reason the apostle once again had to suffer so much was twofold.

Firstly, that only by suffering, only by Paul again ‘standing in the gap’, could this wonderful truth of complete acceptance of sinners by God come into being for Gentiles. Secondly, because only through Paul’s tribulations could it be published abroad.

Truly, he is still the man who ‘stands in the gap’ before God and withstands the devil for us today.

John Dudley Aldworth

Email: johndaldworth42@gmail.com

Website: https://www.dayofchristmnistries.com›