What do we mean by Doctrinal Truth?-

Doctrinal Truth embraces all that has been revealed concerning the Being and Attributes of God, and

 all that God has done, commanded; promised or foretold in Creation, Law and Grace. "All have sinned"

 is true under whatever dispensation we may be called. "God is Just" is as true under grace as it was under

 law. "To the Jew first" was true during the period covered by the Acts, but cannot be put into practice since

 the dismissal of the Jew in Acts 28. This latter statement therefore comes rather under the next heading.

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THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND DISPENSATION

[Part 2]

We desire in this article to emphasize a somewhat unobserved distinction that seems fundamental to a right understanding

 of Truth, viz., the difference there is between Doctrinal Truth and Dispensational Truth. Hitherto we have emphasized the

rding as they range themselves on either side of the " Ancient Landmark "Acts 28.
We do not, however, deny by any means the perfect symmetry, or the unity of Paul's Epistles as a whole; neither do we say

that, because the chronological order is so important we therefore discredit any attempt to show the wonderful teaching

observable in the canonical order of his writings.
Among the important factors of Dispensational Truth, we cannot but see that the setting up of the kingdom necessitates at

least the King and His subjects. But now, the King is rejected, the rightful subjects are " Lo-Ammi " (" not My people "), and

 the setting up of the kingdom has been postponed.  [More]

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FUNDAMENTALS AND THE MYSTERY  By Charles Welch

The Prison Epistles are the only Scriptures which reveal the dispensation of the Mystery, and as that glorious truth is the

 peculiar burden of our ministry, we have placed great stress upon these special epistles. They are five in number, but as

Philemon is personal in character, we often speak of the "Four Prison Epistles", meaning by this statement that these contain

the complete revelation of the Mystery. Now two false conclusions have been drawn from our emphasis upon these epistles.

 One circulated by a well known speaker in Ayrshire - where we were taking meetings - was that we have no room for such an

epistle as the "Romans". This is completely refuted by the publication in 1948 of the book entitled "Just and the Justifier" , and

 whether the charge is made out of ignorance or malice it is misleading in the extreme. We do most certainly distinguish between

the doctrinal teaching of Romans, such as "justification by faith", which is as true for the church of the Mystery as it was when

 first written, and such dispensational teaching as "the Jew first" of Romans 1:16, or "the olive tree" of Romans the eleventh chapter,

 which teaching has no relation to the church of Ephesians, being truth for the time then present. [More]

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SLEEP
If it is to be truly profitable, all true ministry must be "a word in season", and it is not possible nor expedient to at1 to teach

 all the truth, or witness to every doctrine, time.
    The fact that within a week we have received more inquiry concerning the teaching of Scripture regarding death as a sleep,

leads us to see that it would be a word in seas devote some of our limited space to a consideration a1 subject. In the first

place let us turn to John 11:14, "Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead" (Lazaros apethanen).  Greek verb here translated

"is dead" is from apothnesko. John 11:21 and 41 well show, the word thnesko means "to "The addition of the prefix apo

intensifies the cone representing the actions of the simple verb as consummates finished, to die out, to expire, to become

 quite dead" (Dr. E.W. Bullinger's Lexicon). In John 8:52 we read: "Abraham is dead." (Abraham apethanen). Here, therefore,

is fact one. Lazarus was literally and completely dead as was Abraham. [More]

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TRADITION  By Tom Ballinger

In Israel it was found that a great deal of emphasis was placed upon that which one generation passed on to the other; that is,

 what father passed on to son. It was found in Israel at the time of Christ that layer upon layer of tradition had been superimposed

over the Word of God. This tradition was the opinions, the doctrines, the practices, the rites and the customs that were handed

down from one generation in Israel to the next. As a matter of fact, the word tradition means the handing down or transmitting of

 any opinions or practice from forefathers to descendants without written memorials. [More]

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BAPTISM   By Stuart Allen

Let us consider the teaching of the Word of God concerning Baptism. From the standpoint of some of our friends in the

Baptist denomination, this would be quite a simple subject, for they would tell us that when a person comes to know the

Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour, the next thing he ought to do is to be immersed in water. They will assure us that this

was done in apostolic times and it is what believers should do today. The reasons usually brought forward are one or more

of the following. The newly saved person would be told that water baptism is a seal of believers, or it is a sign to unbelievers,

or it takes the place of circumcision, or it is a confession of Christ, or it is the initiatory ordinance of Christianity, or it is the

putting on of the uniform of a Christian, or it is a means of grace, or it brings the believer under God's covenanted mercy. [More]

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  PREDESTINATION

 It is not easy for the mind to dwell upon this term, without it being influenced by the word "destiny".

     Destiny calls up the idea of fate, inexorable and unalterable, and so, we have this statement in the

 Westminster Confession:
   "That the number of the predestinated to life, and of those foreordained to death, is so certain and definite, that it cannot

 be either increased or diminished".
   It is difficult to see how any one holding such a doctrine,, could ever preach the gospel of salvation, could ever contemplate

 the "plucking" of even "one brand from the burning" or why anyone should bother to preach at all. The overshadowing of the

 word "destiny" is plainly marked in this Confession,and many of the advocates of Calvinism are Necessitarians. In a letter to

 Archbishop Cranmer, the reformer, Melancthon complained:
   "At the commencement of our Reformation, the Stoical disputations among our people concerning

 FATE were too horrible". [MORE]

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IMMORTALITY

Some Christian teachers say that the immortality of the soul is so self-evident a truth that there was no need for the Bible

 either to teach it or to deal with its denial, for it must be admitted by all, whatever their persuasion, that the doctrine of

the immortality of the soul is entirely absent from the Scriptures. First, Christian teachers have assumed that man possesses

a soul, instead of "being" a soul, then they assume that this "never dying" part of man must necessarily live on somewhere,

 and consequently there must be a never-ending "hell" for all who are unsaved; and finally, the door is thereby opened for

the deceitful teaching of spiritism, which by its own confession needs nothing more than the acceptance of the doctrine of

the immortality of the soul, for it to function. We leave the Scriptural doctrine of the soul for an article under that title, and

concentrate here on the meaning of the term "immortality". The word does not occur in the O.T. and in the N.T. it is represented

by three Greek words. [More]

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  DIFFICULT QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER By Chris Owen

(1) Why was Jesus Christ baptized?
I hope you don't say that it was to wash away His sins! Jesus was thirty years of age when he was baptized by John, Luke 3:23  Jesus told John that he must be baptized to fulfill all righteousness. We know from Duet. 6:25 and Phil. 3:9 that this righteous was contained in THE LAW. Thus Jesus was telling John that it becometh us to fulfill the LAW. And what was the law that concerned Christ? His anointing in being initiated and entering the Priesthood! See  Number 4: 3, 23, 30, 35, 39, 43, 47, Exodus 29: 4-7, Leviticus 8:6-12.  [More]