Why did God send Paul to the Gentiles?
God sent Paul to the Gentiles after Israel rejected the Messiah according to prophecy. To Paul, God revealed the doctrine of grace, separated from Judaism yet an extension of it. Paul proclaimed salvation based on Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, a message the Twelve could not preach before those events occurred.
Les teaches that God revealed to Paul the whole sphere of doctrine called grace, which was completely separated from Judaism yet an extension of it. This fits progressive revelation: it did not cancel what had gone before but built on it. When Israel, according to prophecy, rejected the Messiah, God saved Paul and said He would send him far hence to the Gentiles. Jesus never taught the Twelve to go to the Gentiles with a gospel based on His death, burial, and resurrection, because it had not yet happened. Paul, however, knows that finished work. Les also notes that the earthly beginning of Christianity was Antioch, not Jerusalem, and that the Body of Christ has no earthly headquarters—its headquarters is Heaven.