Getting An Understanding - The Truth In Acts 28:28
/by Joseph L. Watkins
“Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it.” (Acts 28:28)
So many folks seem to think that the salvation of God that we find in Acts 28:28 is making reference of the revelation of the body and the gospel of your salvation that we read of in Eph. 1:13: “In Whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard of the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in Whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise.”
But this is just not the truth, for one has nothing to do with the other. As I see it, in Acts 28:28 the One Spirit of All Truth is not teaching us of the beginning of the church which is His body, but rather the ending of the nation of Israel being the “chosen people of God,” for that people has been judged to now be lo-ammi – not My people (Hosea 1:9). The Lord goes on to add these words, “And I will not be (the Great) – I Am to you.”
For almost 2000 years, from Genesis 12 to Acts 28:28, about B.C. 1992 until A.C. 63-70, this nation had been His chosen people, the one nation that our great God was working with that He might reach the rest of mankind. And yes, we must know and fully understand that He still loves us all, but He is not working with that people as He once did. Read and study Acts 28:25-29.
This judgment should have come as no surprise for it had been prophesied by the great prophet Isaiah some 600 years earlier, and rehearsed a number of times. Now, dear ones, be sure to read these holy Words of Truth in verses 26 and 27.
Now as we consider together verse 28, I must say that all may know, that I, for one, consider these words of truth some of God’s most important words of all His Holy Words, and to say the least is worthy of our greatest interest and concern, as we find in the King James version: “Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it.”
Here we give this truth as it might have been rendered: Known therefore let be to you, that to the nations has been authorized the salvation-bringing message of God, and they are to have hearing (for it). These few words of truth together constitute a divine proclamation unto all the people of the nation of Israel – every one of the ‘let be to you’ ones. And yet, in a very real sense this message is for all mankind, for as the people of Israel were being demoted the other men of the world were being promoted. All men, yes, every man born of woman, has been fully reconciled with their Maker, they all have been given the ability to hear this one message of holy truth out of God, Oh, what boundless love of our God!
The word Gentile should have been nations here because a Gentile is only a Gentile as a Jew is only a Jew, and here that people is no more a people of God. We are all the people of the nations, and unto all these peoples has been sent, or authorized, the salvation-bringing message of God. The word salvation used here is most interesting, it is word #4992 and is the adjective form of the word #4991. An adjective is used to modify, describe, or enhance a noun as we might use the word large or the word beautiful, such is always used with other words. And so this word salvation must be with some other word a noun, which the King James translators did over in Titus 2:11. The Greek has it, For appeared the grace of God salvation, all men, so they added what was needed to set out the truth, and we now have – “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation, hath appeared to all men.”
The little word it is not in the Greek text, but the King James translators knew that the word hearing indicated a message, and as the message was for all nations, it must be a salvation unto life message. But the message concerning the revelation of body truth is for only those that already have life in Christ Jesus – the saints of God in Christ Jesus.
So, dear ones, the one message of life we find in our Bible that was so divinely sent, or as we see it, authorized – yes, officially authorized by God Himself, Christ Jesus – can only be the book of John the Beloved. This one book, or message, of life Christ Jesus, was recorded and sent out unto the whole world of mankind, and this accomplished in direct response to our one Lord’s words in Acts 28:28: “Until that hour, salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:21-24).
