WHICH WORD WERE THEY PREACHING? ACTS chapter 8 v 4 Therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word. This is one of the clearest examples we have in the word of God that the dispensation of grace is not found any where in the Bible outside the letters written by the Apostle Paul. Why? Because the scattering of the saints was as a result of the persecution which was being carried out by the man himself, Saul of Tarsus, who was unsaved at this time.
At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. 2 And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him. 3 As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison. What gospel was being preached at this time? The gospel of the earthly kingdom that Peter preached on the day of pentecost that Christ was the promised Messiah of Israel. Repent ( That you crucified your Messiah), be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus for the remission of sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Are these the terms and conditions of salvation under the present dispensation of grace? I find it rather interesting that most Christians say they believe that salvation is by grace through faith alone in the person of Christ and they are absolutely correct. However the question I would like to ask is this. How did you arrive at that point? If you say we should be laboring under the great commission then it seems that you should be following the terms and conditions of the great commission. According to Mark 16 vs 15 – 16, you had to believe and then be water baptized in order to complete your salvation. You had to believe that Christ was the Son of God, the Messiah of Israel, be water baptized for the remission of sins and then you would receive the Holy Spirit. Let's fast forward to the dispensation of the grace of God which the Lord Jesus revealed to Paul for the Gentiles ( That's you and me ). It also includes the Jews, since God is not dealing with Israel today according to the earthly kingdom program, because of their unbelief and rejection of Christ as her Messiah. The point I am trying to get across is the fact that Paul never preached Christ according to the terms and conditions of the kingdom gospel for salvation. It's not in the Bible and you would have to do some serious twisting of the Scriptures to arrive at that conclusion. So how then, can the evangelical church say they believe in salvation by faith alone but you are still water baptizing believers as a part of their salvation experience? You say water baptism is not a requirement for salvation but according to the great commission that you are so passionate about, it is an absolute requirement. We often hear the following that water baptism is identification with Jesus's death, burial and resurrection and yet this is not found in the Bible, it is the baptism of the Holy Spirit which places us into Christ at the time of salvation which identifies us with His death, burial and resurrection. It is a working of God not man. One of the ways you can tell if a church is preaching the dispensation of the grace of God in it's pureness and fullness, lies in their doctrinal statement and I have seen and read some pretty interesting doctrinal statements. Colossians 2 v 12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. We have also heard that water baptism is an outward sign of an inward work of grace. This is pretty dramatic even for the unsaved. Most Christians are programmed to think, whenever they hear the word baptize, they immediately begin to think of water. Before His crucifixion Jesus spoke about a baptism He was distressed by. Was He talking about water baptism? Let's find out. Luke 12 v 50 But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is accomplished! Clearly we see here, that He was talking about His impending death on the cross. We are baptized into His death but it's not a water ceremony done by man.
You cannot just move over to Paul's message of grace and apply it to a previous dispensation without first acknowledging that there has been a dispensational change.
But this is exactly what the church, the body of Christ has done and is still doing. We have taken the dispensation of grace which the Lord Jesus revealed to the Apostle Paul for the Gentiles and combined it with Israel's earthly kingdom program, which is not in operation at the present time, because of their unbelief and try to make them one and the same message thus we have this teaching, that there is only one gospel in the Bible. Only one good news. It is true that today, there is only one good news for salvation, and that is salvation by grace through faith in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, but it does not lend any support to this idea that there is only one good news in the Bible. That is the tradition and teaching of men, who does not understand rightly dividing the Scriptures.