The Foundation Principle of the Gospel
“WHAT then shall one answer the messengers of the nation? That Jehovah hath founded Zion, and in her shall the afflicted of his people take refuge.” “Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone of sure foundation.” “Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” “And in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved;” for “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.” The church of Jesus Christ was founded by Jehovah as the channel through which this message of the gospel of Christ must go to the nations. It now becomes necessary in this generation for the people of God to study again the foundation principles of the gospel of Christ; and it becomes necessary that there should be a clearing away of that which hinders any from seeing Christ in his rightful place in this message as the Son of God, the Creator of all things. It is necessary to emphasize again the principles which underlie the gospel, giving to Christ his true place. The message for this time is such a teaching of the gospel as will meet every need, and will prepare a people to meet the Lord, will bring help to every one, will shed light on every path, and will emphasize the place that belongs to Christ the Son of God in the sanctuary service, and will teach us and all who lay hold of this experience in a very real way to obtain the power for us in the gospel which is “the power of God unto salvation.” Here is a scripture which serves as a foundation for much study for this time:— “Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: for by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell.” The thought that stands out so clearly in this scripture is that he who is the head of creation is the head of the church. “Jehovah hath founded Zion, and in her shall the afflicted of his people take refuge.” Let us read it again with this thought in mind: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. . . . For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the pre-eminence.” The right teaching of the gospel of Christ will give to the eternal Son his rightful place as head of creation. And the power that was revealed through Christ in the original creation is the power which is revealed through him as the head of the new creation, and the Sabbath is the sign of that power in both cases.4A right understanding of this thought will help us to meet the needs of this time. We are beset on every hand by all kinds of false teachings brought in by the enemy to lead the people into error. The right kind of teaching of this message for this generation will involve the teaching of the gospel in such a way as shall bring to every one now who is looking for help just the help that he needs, and shall shed light on every one who is in darkness. That is the message for this time, and the message for this generation will especially emphasize the place which belongs to Christ the Son of God. He who is the head of the original creation is the head of the church. This truth is at the foundation of the gospel and the message for this time, and a right understanding and teaching of it will help us greatly in presenting the truth at this time in such a way as to meet the needs of this time. When Paul the apostle preached this gospel and wrote this gospel, there had come into this world such a perversion of the teachings of the gospel as called for a restatement of the whole gospel—for the shedding of a new light upon the very foundation principles of the gospel of God, concerning his Son; and those perversions of the truth of God, which had brought things to such a pass at that time, grew almost invariably out of the perversion of the relation which God sustains to creation, through his only begotten Son. This same apostle Paul, who wrote this epistle to the Colossians, was one day in Athens, and he met certain philosophers, the Epicureans and the Stoics, and they thought they would like to know what this babbler said. They spent their time in nothing else than to tell or to hear some new thing. There were those various sects of the philosophers who were at the time bringing forward new theories and new explanations of things. They said, Here is a new man come among us, let us hear what he has to say. They were philosophers of the Epicureans and Stoics. Now when the fulness of time had come, and Christ was revealed in the flesh, there were these schools of the philosophers who had perverted the truth, who had shut away the light, who did not profess to have anything in common with the teachings of the Jewish religion. And there were the Jews who had so far lost the original truth of the gospel as revealed in their services that they were no longer the channel of salvation and light and blessing both to themselves and to the world. These services they had turned into a means of hiding the revelation of God, so that there was no clear revelation of light, and the people sat in darkness, and the philosophers speculated, and the teachers of religion invented some new ways of salvation by works. The philosophers in that time, such as the Epicureans and the Stoics that Paul met, while they disagreed upon many things and speculated over many others, generally agreed upon one principle, and that was the perversion of the relation of God to his created works. These philosophers in olden times, when this gospel in which the pre-eminence must be given to Christ the Son, was taught by the apostle Paul and others, taught a philosophy which shut out Christ, the Son, from his place in the original creation. “The Epicureans maintained that the universe arose out of a fortuitous concurrence of atoms.” “The Deity had somewhat more of majesty and influence assigned to him by the Stoics. They did not limit his functions merely to the regulating of the clouds, and the numbering of the stars, but conceived him to animate every part of the universe with his presence, in the nature of a subtle, active, penetrating fire.” These were the teachings of the Epicureans and Stoics—those philosophers whom the apostle Paul met that day, and to whom he was preaching on Mars Hill. To these he preached of the God who made the heavens and the earth. He did not preach to them the gospel of a force that brought the universe into shape by a mere fortuitous arrangement of atoms, that is, by chance. Nor did he preach to them of a god that pervaded all things as a subtle essence. He brought to them the gospel of that God to whom they had made reference by their inscription on the altar which they had erected to the unknown God. He declared unto them that that God whom they worshiped in ignorance he would reveal unto them, in his relation to the universe—the God that made the heaven and the earth. This was the true God, that God who had been revealed through his works, who had been especially revealed through the gospel, who had been set forth in the sacrifices and offerings and services of the sanctuary. But that God had been largely lost sight of, both by the heathen and by the professed believers in God. Now where was the root of their perversion of the light that had come to them? It was in this one thing: they had perverted the teaching of the relationship which God sustains to the things that he had made. That is to say, they did not give to Christ the Son his place as head of creation: they did not teach that through him all things came into being, and that without him nothing came into being that came into being. They did not teach that truth that through him all things were created, whether they be thrones, or principalities, or powers: they did not give to him the place of pre-eminence in God's creation of things. And, because of that, they did not give to him his place as the head of the church, of the new creation. For that philosophy which takes away the eternal Son from his place as head of the original creation, will end in taking him from his place as head of the church, for these things are bound together in such a way that they can not be separated. And, again, we are to mark that the true gospel for all time and for this time, is that which gives unto Christ the eternal Son, his place as head of the original creation, his place as head of the new creation, the church, and makes him in all things to have the pre-eminence. When he is given his place, it stands forth as the leading truth of this gospel, that through faith in him there shall come to the believer that creative power which makes him a new man in Christ Jesus—that creative power which transforms him into the image of God—that creative power without which the gospel is not the power of God unto salvation. So then, when we set aside Christ from his place in the original creation, we take away from the gospel that which is its power for salvation. This is not a mere theory; it is a great fact of experience.