Thus closes the Acts of the Apostles, which, like the Gospels, is more or less connected with the testimony to Israel. So long as Israel could be regarded as the object of testimony, so long the testimony continued; but when they were shut up to judicial blindness, they ceased to come within the range of testimony, wherefore the testimony ceased. And now let us see what this "mystery," this "gospel," this "salvation," really was, and wherein its peculiarity consisted. To understand this is of the utmost importance. What, therefore, was Paul's gospel? Was it a different method of justifying a sinner from that preached by the other apostles? No; by no means. Paul preached both to the Jews and also to the Gentiles "repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." This was the substance of his preaching. The peculiarity of the gospel preached by Paul had not so much reference to God's way of dealing with _the sinner_ as with _the saint_; it was not so much how God justified a sinner as what He did with him when justified. Yes; it was the place into which Paul's gospel conducted the _saint_ that marked its peculiarity. As regards the justification of a sinner, there could be but one way, namely, through faith in the one offering of the Lord Jesus Christ. But there could be numerous degrees of elevation as regards the standing of the saint. For example, a saint in the opening of Acts had higher privileges than a saint under the law. Moses, the prophets, John, our Lord in His personal ministry, and the twelve, all brought out varied aspects of the believer's position before God. But Paul's gospel went far beyond them all. It was not the kingdom offered to Israel on the ground of repentance, as by John the Baptist and our Lord; nor was it the kingdom opened to Jew and Gentile by Peter in Acts iii. and x.; but it was _the heavenly calling of the Church of God composed of Jew and Gentile, in one body, united to a glorified Christ by the presence of the Holy Ghost_. The epistle to the Ephesians fully develops the mystery of the will of God concerning this. There we find ample instruction as to our heavenly standing, heavenly hopes, and heavenly conflict. The apostle does not contemplate the Church as a pilgrim _on earth_, (which, we need not say, is most true,) but as sitting _in heaven_: not as toiling _here_, but resting _there_. "He hath raised us up together, and made us _sit_ together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." It is not that He _will_ do this, but "He hath" done it. When Christ was raised from the dead, all the members of His body were raised also; when He ascended into heaven, they ascended also; when He sat down, they sat down also; that is, in the counsel of God, and to be actualized in process of time by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.