PAUL'S GREAT PRISON ESCAPE

PAUL’S GREAT PRISON ESCAPE

No, Paul did not break out, nor did he have a “get out of jail free” card. But he did escape from the inner conflict he was facing while he was “a prisoner for Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:23, 29, 30) and, in doing so, found a realm of blessing from the Lord, both for himself and us who follow in his footsteps that still functions today.

You see, something profound happened to Paul while he was in prison in Rome. So huge was its impact that it created a whole new understanding from God of the Christian life and its outcome. Yet, sadly, to this day, teachers and commentators seem to want to know little or nothing about it as a new work, indeed, a new creation, of God.

For the Apostle Paul the breakthrough came in the most agonizing crisis of his life. One that took him to the doors of death, but, more importantly, subsequently, to a place of complete victory in Christ.

It was a bombshell for this writer when he was shown by the Spirit “of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him” (Eph. 1: 17) the huge importance of this revelation, for it touches on the ultimate destiny of every persevering believer. He finds it amazing that despite nearly 2,000 years of great minds studying scripture few seem to have stumbled on this truth which is vital to the completion of our salvation.

Put simply it is this: In Philippians chapter three the Apostle Paul clearly says he had not yet attained to those things Christ had “apprehended him for”. These included being made perfect, deeply knowing Christ, being found in Him, having the righteousness of his (Christ’s) faith, knowing the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his sufferings and being conformed to his death. It was also Paul’s deepest desire to be among the first to be out-resurrected from the dead.

However, later in Ephesians, the apostle can now say God has “blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). And, as he further explains in both Ephesians and Colossians, these blessings include nearly all the things he was lacking back in Philippians. Granted, they could and can only be received by faith and the future fulfilment of some must still be awaited, but then that’s true of much we are given by God.

It’s a matter of simply recognising that in scripture it’s often a case of “that was then, but this is now”. Thus in the Bible, there is deep gulf between “shall” and “will” on one hand and the words “has” or “hath” on the other, just as there is between “may” and might” and “made” and “created”. Thus in Philippians Paul could only strive for, long for and hope for the huge change he knew only God could bring about. In Ephesians, by contrast, he exults that God has already done it.

To grasp this truth one needs to follow the Bible’s advice to “approve the things that are (more) excellent” or (KJV margin note) “the things that differ” (Phil. 1:10). In turn that means heeding Paul’s command to Timothy (2 Tim. 2:15) to:

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Applying that dictum we find that the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians differs sharply from the other “prison epistles”, Ephesians, Colossians, the “pastoral” epistles and Philemon. Indeed it is held that it is the first of the letters Paul wrote in 56 AD from his Roman prison.

Why so, you ask? Well, when the Apostle wrote Philippians he, like the remnants of the Acts period “Church of God”, was in a state of flux. They were caught between the end of one dispensation (or God-created age, or eon), i.e. the Pentecostal dispensation in the Acts period, and the next, the dispensation of “the grace of God” (see 1 Corinthians 10:11 where “worlds” means ages, or dispensations). And, in this interval between one programme of God’s supernatural working and the start of another – to wit, the dispensation of grace and the mystery of Christ (Eph. 3:1-4) – many lost faith and began to walk as “enemies of the cross of Christ” (Phil. 3:17-19).

Why so, you ask? The answer is that while all blessings result from the Lord Jesus’ victory over death and sin at the cross, some of them were only revealed later through the revelations given to the Apostle Paul in the new “dispensation of the grace of God” (Eph. 3:1-4).

In the interim between these two changes in God’s dealings with mankind Paul himself had to reach out afresh to find what God was about to do but had not done yet. It was a hiatus, a time when the miracles of past years ceased, when, temporarily, supernatural evidences stopped flowing, a time when the Lord ministered only an expectation of what He would do next.

Indeed, for two or more years after God closed the door on the Pentecostal dispensation of signs, wonders and salvation experienced both by Jewish believers and Gentiles grafted into Israel's olive tree, Paul could only preach the “kingdom of God, teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 28:31).

No wonder then that the faithful apostle challenges both himself and fellow believers to press on “forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out to the things that are before” (Phil. 3:3:13-34).

But, apparently, this many would not do. Why? Because, as the Lord Jesus said in his earthly ministry, “no man having drunk old wine prefers the new”. The “enemies of the cross” cited by Paul in Philippians three evidently refused to leave behind the miracles of the Acts period, which were no longer effective, as indeed many Christians find them so today. They also clung to the notion that blessing still comes courtesy of Israel when that nation’s role as a vehicle of salvation was terminated in Acts 28:28.

Such people, says Paul, walk as the enemies of Christ’s cross, “whose god is their belly” and “who mind earthly things” (Phil. 3:18-19). Alarmingly, he says their end is “destruction”. In other words, by clinging to what God has ceased to do so and refusing to accept his latest report through the Apostle Paul, they make shipwreck of their faith.

Sadly, much of Christianity is making the same mistake today. They too cling to the past and shun the wonders and blessings of the age of grace and the mystery now revealed in Paul’s later epistles.

Why so? Because in these epistles is found a fully completed work of salvation and Satan hates that. We have now been “made” (by God) accepted in the beloved (Eph. 1:6”. We are, Paul insists, already “reconciled in the body of his (Christ’s) flesh to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight) Col. 122). It is my conviction this leaves no room for religious self-effort, church rituals borrowed from Jewish practice, or putting faith in anything other than the latest revelation of grace and the mystery given to Paul.

 Evidently, in this interregnum between dispensations Paul was still not able to “finish my course with joy, and the ministry I have received of the Lord Jesus to testify of the grace of God” as he had hoped to do in Acts 20: 24, when visiting the saints at Ephesus. If he could have surely he would have done so. But he could not. The wonders of grace would only come later by way of revelation to the “prisoner of Jesus Christ” in his cell.

 Thus there was a hiatus, a period of limbo, between the shutdown of the Pentecostal dispensation at the end of the Book of Acts and the joyful proclamation of a whole new order of things in Ephesians and Colossians. In the upshot Israel was set aside and the blessings of Abraham closed off. Fulfilment of prophecy ceased. All this left the Acts period “Church of God” in limbo waiting for what God would do next.

So, the letter to the Philippians was addressed to those waiting for the Lord’s next move, for they were caught up in “the same conflict” (Phil. 1:30) that engaged and so distressed (Phil. 3:20-21) the Apostle Paul.

This gap between what God had been doing and what He would do next is similar to what believers experience in our time. For, in 2025, it is clear that few are being saved, churches are failing and worldwide Christianity is under attack and in retreat.

The Lord, it appears, is not now stepping in to stop the rot. But He will at his “appearing” (Titus 2:13) when He brings in his kingdom (2 Tim. 4:1) and ushers in a new era, the “Day of Christ” (1 Cor. 1:8, Phil. 1: 6, 1:10, 2:16 etc.).

Back in the first century Paul in prison in Rome before his great breakthrough knew that Israel had been set aside (Rom. 11:12, 15) and the message of salvation sent to the Gentiles for “they will hear it” (Acts 28:28). But he was longing for what God would do next. He even knew what part of that would be. Thus, in Phil. 3:20-21 he declares:

For our conversation (citizenship and destiny) is in heaven from whence we also look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself.

Nowhere in the Old Testament, the gospels or Acts and epistles written in period was anybody ever told they would have a body as glorious as that of the Lord. It was new truth that came as a result of the revelation given in prison to Paul.

John Dudley Aldworth

Email: john.aldworth@hotmail.com

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