Remember that the Body of Christ revelation was NOT revealed till the ascended Lord Jesus gave it to the apostle Paul. (Eph. 3: 1 - 7)
Can you please show how what Jesus said to Paul by the Holy Spirit as to His coming for His Body, is the same as His coming for Israel in Matt. 24 when He was speaking to Israel?
Jesus wasn’t speaking to Israel while upon the Mount of Olives; He was speaking to His early Church, His Apostles and disciples. You have wrongly been taught by men’s doctrines to label Christ’s early Church at His 1st coming as Israel, creating a false separation that is not written in God’s Word. Apostle Paul in Ephesians 2 called the early Church “the commonwealth of Israel”.
So I do not adhere to men’s false tradition that only Paul’s ministry began the Christian Church, and that only Paul’s Epistles apply to the Church. You can go try and argue that junk with someone else, it doesn’t work with me.
Oh, and by the way, I am not a Dispensationalist. One should notice that I do not support man’s false Pre-trib Rapture theory that began in 1830’s Great Britain.
Though I was raised in a Protestant Church that dwelt on men’s false doctrine of Preterism, I do not adhere to that seminary theory either.
Nor am I a Historicist, nor an Amillennialist, nor any *ist. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ and I follow His Word, not man’s.
The problem with men’s doctrines is the same ole’ trick that Satan used in tempting Eve, and in trying to tempt Lord Jesus in Luke 4. Satan knows Bible Scripture.
Satan does not destroy everything written in Bible Scripture because that would be a dead give-away that he was trying to deceive. Instead he adds or takes away little pieces that changes the actual written Scripture. Same thing happens with men’s doctrines. That is why at some point those ‘stuck’ on men’s doctrines like the old bottles Jesus pointed to, will wrongly accuse me of following one of the many seminary categories of men’s doctrines. That’s only because each one of those seminary doctrines does contain some Bible Truth, and there it is, a la Satan’s modus operandi to deceive.
How do we counter all those doctrines of men that attempt to deceive? STAY… in God’s Word ‘as written’. It’s that simple.
I’m trying to follow your thinking. Are you saying that Jesus did not come for us? Rather, the Jews only? In which case, you would be partly right. Or are you saying that He is coming back for Jews only? I’m just trying to understand.
Peter
So then, is it true that most of the people Paul spoke too was of Jewish nature? Yes, God still wanted His chosen saved. However, Peter’s role was to the Jews, while Paul’s primary role was to the Gentiles.
However, Jesus expressly claimed ownership. In Matthew 16:18, Jesus says,
" And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it."
The Church is entirely His project. Paul himself completely rejects the idea that he or any other apostle is the foundation. In 1 Corinthians 3:11, Paul writes,
“For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
The Church is described as a spiritual building where Jesus holds everything together. Ephesians 2:20 states the Church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.” The Church was officially empowered on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2), when the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples in Jerusalem, and about 3,000 people were baptized. At that time, Paul was not a leader; he was actively trying to destroy the Church (Acts 8:3; Galatians 1:13). The Church had to exist first for Paul to be able to persecute it.
Paul was a chosen instrument called to expand the Church’s borders. His specific assignment was to take the Gospel to the Gentiles. A chosen instrument he was. When Jesus calls Paul, He explicitly defines his mission: “…this man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel” Acts 9:15.
Paul viewed himself as a servant or a master builder laying a floor plan based entirely on Jesus’ blueprints. In 1 Corinthians 3:6, he uses an agricultural metaphor: “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.”
Hope this helps.
Peter
Please don’t try and trap me. I’m a Protestant Christian and not Jewish. So I am well familiar with Apostle Paul’s Epistles, and with the event of the Acts.
In Galatians 2:7-8, Paul explained that he was talking about the ‘same’ Gospel of Jesus Christ as Peter had, but that they did each have a different administration or stewardship of that one Gospel.
But the Dispensationalists, especially the Hyper-Dispensationalists, try to claim 2 separate gospels, which is not written. That because the Dispensational theory of men they are on comes from John Darby’s 1830’s teachings of a false Pre-trib Rapture theory. Hyper-Dispensationalism thus tries to separate God’s Israel from Christ’s Church when there is no such idea written in His Word. The New Covenant is a continuation of God’s Plan first begun in the Old Testament. That original plan had always included the believing Gentiles.
And let me be clear on that, the old covenant was done away with by Lord Jesus upon His cross. His Blood sacrifice brought us the New Covenant. David was given to prophesy of Christ’s crucifixion about a thousand years before it happened (Psalms 22). Isaiah also prophesied of Christ’s coming and crucifixion (Isaiah 53).
In a latter post here Dr. you highlight deeper passages in Matt 24 (around the vs 24 mark) as likely being the antichrist himself. I always thought those verses were odd because Matt 24:24 seem to be in the second half of the tribulation “after” the AC already demanded worship and the taking of the mark.
But in that latter post here you would see it line up with the AC warning himself. I like that. Because to the Jewish mind, perhaps it would not be easy for them to take that they missed their Messiah AND fell for worshipping the anitchist. So posturing the AC “also” as maybe he is in the wilderness or in a secret room language helps surround the Jewish person with options to consider “the season of the AC.” I have never seen that before. So thanks for that. I try to learn from wherever it may come, amen.
. . . . .
On the first seal, I bring this up because you have large mention and concern of doctrines of men. And i concur. I don’t believe the first seal is biblically provable as the AC though. For many reasons. Here are just a few:
. . . . .
What if for example the 1st seal is Christian Nationalism? This actually has some good to it in that we want to go against the liberal bent of countries. Ultimately it is bad because it is corrupt. And knee jerk reaction to liberalism and evil progressing. I don’t believe Christian Nationaism is the 1st seal, but i think it is a stronger likelier case than the AC.
What if the first seal is the rightness of religion and politics pseudo morally? Like the alt right or the tendency today to blend Christian belief with conservative politics. This is huge today. And also has some good. But is also corrupt and leads away from Christ. More so than Christian Nationalism, at least in focus. Because the focus becomes our values prized.
What if the first seal is a man who conquers with economic power and military alignment to overthrow the known world order, like globalism and the defragmentation of the EU? What if the first seal is a brief restoration of true world free trade? A last call animation Christian tract to the last generation before the rapture? A testimony of God’s thousand year reign power seen for a split second in the age of grace before the second seal…which i believe likely is Ez 38 (as we see historical formation of that now in the middle east). If that is what the first seal is, the best candidate for a first seal since the ikes of Alexander the Great, would be Trump. I believe he is. But i know this is super controversial…lol. In any event i just posture it to challenge what i would see as man made doctrine of the 1800. If that makes sense? Blessings.
The position of the early church according to their writings was a pre tribulation rapture. Early church fathers like Irenaeus, the Didache, The Shepherd of Hermas, Clement of Rome, Polycarp, and Victorinus all believed the church would be raptured before God’s wrath falls on the world. If consulting AI a different answer will likely appear and mention a 19th century invention of a pre trib rapture coming into play, but that simply isn’t true.
This is not evidence for a pre trib rapture, but it’s important not to use false information to support a later time for the rapture.
I was saying that Jesus was speaking to the Jews about His coming (after the trib,) to deliver them. (Matt. 24: 21 & 30)
Later when Jesus ascended to the Father and was made Head of the Body Jesus revealed His purpose for them and His timing to come to gather them and take them to glory.
About the 1st Seal: Rev.6 doesn’t actually mention that it is the 1st Seal. It just says “one of the seals” (KJV). Have you wondered about that?
Thus the white horse rider in Rev.6 is assumed… to be the 1st Seal. Because that Scripture does not say so, it leaves room for that white horse rider event happening on a later Seal.
The events in the latter part of the 6th Seal point directly to Christ’s 2nd coming, but with other events without mentioning His coming on a white horse like Rev.19 shows. Besides the Rev.6:2 white horse rider being out of order, those Rev.6:14-17 events are not mentioned with the Rev.6:2 white horse rider, so there’s no reason to assume the one in Rev.6:2 is Lord Jesus.
Because of other Bible Scripture, like Lord Jesus’ warning of the coming of a pseudo-Christ that will have power to work great signs and wonders, and will proclaim himself as God in a new stone temple in Jerusalem, that gives weight to that Rev.6:2 white horse rider being that pseudo-Christ we were warned about. Without understanding that warning, going into Rev.6:2 would naturally make one think Jesus’ coming on a white horse was being spoken of.
The position of the early Church, for over 1,800 years, was a Post-tribulational coming of our Lord Jesus. The false Pre-trib Rapture theory was first preached in a Christian Church in 1830’s Great Britain by John Nelson Darby.
But Jesus wasn’t just speaking to Jews upon the Mount of Olives with Him, He was speaking to His early Church. You want to claim Paul’s Epistles as foundation to Christ’s Church, then I suggest you heed what Paul said about the early Church…
Eph 2:19-22
19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:
22 In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
KJV
Thus trying to label the Apostles that were with Jesus upon the Mount of Olives in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 as unbelieving Jews is gross error and stupidity. I believe you are smarter than that, and are only listening to men instead of you staying in the written Word of God for yourself.
I’m not. Not sure why you would think that.
Agreed. You are arguing for the continuity of God’s plan across history, rather than it being broken into separate sections or “dispensations.” Are you being defensive because you feel that I am trying to steer them into a theological “trap?” Or I’m presenting an argument over how to interpret the relationship between Israel, the Church, and end-times prophecy? This is not the case. I was merely responding to Paul not starting the Christian Church. Apostle Paul and Apostle Peter preached the exact same Gospel. The only difference was administrative: Peter was assigned to preach that single message to the Jews (the circumcised), and Paul was assigned to preach it to the Gentiles (the uncircumcised), but ultimately it was Jesus.
Amen!
Peter
Ok, I get what you are trying to convey; however, there is neither Jew nor Gentile. Jesus is speaking to His church, which would be all of us. Now, if you are referring to the 144,000 during the trib, yes, they are Jews from the different tribes. However, that does not say that it is ALL that will be saved during the trib rather you will have to become a martyr.
Peter
It is how you began your post to me like the above statement, which is not Biblical. Jesus showed in Acts 9 that Paul was His “chosen vessel” to take The Gospel to the Gentiles, and to kings, and to the children of Israel. And at one time or another, Paul preached to all three, but mainly he preached to the Gentiles as he was sent by Christ especially to the Gentiles.
Why do you think Jesus sent Paul especially to preach to the Gentiles? This is a Bible study you will likely never hear in today’s Churches…
Do you recall Joseph being separated from his eleven brethren and being sold as a slave into Egypt, and God causing him to rise up as 2nd head in all Egypt, which were Gentiles? When God scattered the northern ten tribes of Israel first out of the holy land, He did a similar thing like what happened with Joseph.
Per the Book of Hosea, God showed what He would do to the ten northern tribes which became lost. He only ended their kingdom in the holy land, but exalted them for His special Pupose elsewhere. God said He would hedge up their paths so they couldn’t find their way back (to the holy land), and they would lose their heritage as part of Israel with no longer keeping His feast days, sabbaths, or new moons. God used the naming of Hosea’s children to represent all this, and one of the names, ‘Lo Ami’ means ‘not My people’. Thus the ten tribes became lost to the world and to the Jews of the southern kingdom of Judah.
Yet in Hosea, God prophesied that He would lead the ten tribe “house of Israel” into the “wilderness” where He would speak softley to them, and give them a new covenant, and then they again, along… with believing Gentiles, would become ‘Ami’, My people, and be called ‘ye are the sons of the living God.’ Paul quoted that last part from Hosea 1 to believing Roman Gentiles in Romans 9.
Historically, there is archaelogical evidence that the ten northern tribes that were taken captive by the Assyrians to Assyria and the land of the Medes, eventually migrated as a majority to the West, into Asia Minor and Europe. They became as Gentiles living among Gentiles, and I believe God did it to protect them, and to build Christ’s Church among both peoples. Jesus had said that He was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the “house of Israel”. That label “house of Israel” Biblically applies only… to the ten northern tribes of Israel, and not to the Jews of the southern “kingdom of Judah” (See 1 Kings 11 thru 2 Kings 17).
In Genesis 35, God told Jacob that his seed would become “a nation, and a company of nations.” In Genesis 48, that promise was passed on to Joseph’s younger son Ephraim who received God’s Birthright blessing from Jacob. Ephraim’s seed was to become “a multitude of nations”, and his elder brother Manasseh would also become “great”. Yet the nation of Israel in the middle east has only ever been but one… nation, not a multitude of nations. So how and where was this fulfilled? It was fulfilled in the Christian West with the historical western Christian nations. After the majority of Jews in the holy land rejected The Gospel, it went to where the majority of the ten northern tribes had been scattered and settled, in the lands of Asia Minor and Europe.
How then does one try and separate so many of the children of Israel that made up the founders of the western Christian Church from that Church? Well, that is what man’s Dispensationalist theories from Darby does. And E.W. Bullinger, though an excellent British Bible scholar of the late 1800’s, help further Darby’s false dispensationalist theories to create the Hyper-Dispensationalist or Hyper-Grace movement that tries to separate Paul’s Epistles from the rest of the Bible.
What was Jesus? What was Matthew? James, John? What was Sual? Who became Paul. There were all Jews. When they became followers of Christ, they were just like all others. I just said that there is neither Jew nor Gentile in the family of God. So I’m not sure what you are arguing about.
“But the Lord said to him, 'Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.” Acts 9:15
" And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, “‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’” Acts 13:46-47
Also?
“On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised (for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles), and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.” Galatians 2:7-9
I think it is pretty clear. Are you claiming British Israelism or Anglo-Israelism? The belief that the Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, and Germanic peoples of the Christian West are the literal, physical descendants of the “Lost Ten Tribes” of the Northern Kingdom of Israel?
While there are records of the Assyrian captivity (around 722 BC), mainstream historians and archaeologists generally do not find evidence linking the migrating tribes of Israel to the European, Celtic, or Anglo-Saxon peoples.
I believe that the mainstream Christian theology (Catholic, Orthodox, and traditional Protestant thought) interprets the fulfillment of the promises to Abraham, Jacob, and Ephraim quite differently from British Israelism.
Peter
Not specifically, no, because most of those ideas are not really what The Bible reveals. British Israelism is specifically about Great Britain representing Israel, and does not fulfill the multitude of nations prophecy, nor that Ephraim’s brother Manasseh would also become great (See Gen.48).
Yet there is… a connection in Britain, and all the other western Christian nations, regardless of how much Satan’s host wants to keep that hidden… And historically, Britain was Christian before Rome was.
In the 1930’s at the university of Michigan, professor of languages Leroy Waterman translated Royal Correspondance of the Assyrian Empire from their ancient cuneiform tablets. Those ancient writings contain what the Assyrians called the ten tribes of Israel and their kings that were scattered there. The Jehu Steele also contains some of that information. King Omri, a king over the ten tribes, the Assyrians called Khumri. Waterman translated these names, and it did point eventually to the Cimmerian peoples. The science of anthropology knows quite a bit about the Cimmerians, as they were some of the main ones to migrate from the east into Asia Minor and Europe, becoming known as Caucasians, having crossed through the Caucasus mountains around the Black Sea into Europe.
The Scottish nobles in their Declaration of Arbroath in the 1300’s made the claim that they had a heritage from ancient Israel, having migrated in stages to the Isles.
Apostle Paul wanted to visit the brethren in Spain. Few know about the Zarah line in ancient Spain at a place called Zaragossa (means fortress of Zarah). I’ve been there to the old ruins of the city, as I was once stationed in Spain in the USAF. God reminded me about that place when I was studying His Word about the ten tribes. Zarah was the twin brother of Pharez, per Genesis 38. Zarah stuck his hand out of Tamar’s womb first, and as per the custom, they tied a scarlet thread on his wrist, to mark the firstborn. Pharez instead jerked Zarah back into the womb, and Pharez came out first, and would be the line that king David and Lord Jesus were born of. But both boys were sons of Judah.
So one can heed the propaganda by Satan and his host that are against all this, or they can listen to God in His Word, because God showed through Jacob in Genesis 49:10 that the royal sceptre would never depart from Judah, nor a law giver between his feet, until Shiloh (Jesus) comes, and then that throne will rightly be Christ’s throne at His return. That means God promised the royal house of David is still… sitting upon a throne somewhere in the world today, since David’s throne ended in Jerusalem in the days of Zedekiah, king of Judah. So either one believes God’s Word as written, or they stay Biblically illiterate.
One question here. Do you believe the ekklesia has replaced Israel?
J.
The generation the Lord spoke of has passed away, but did not pass away without seeing the things the Lord predicted, such as the destruction of Jerusalem and her Temple.
There’s no reason to believe the Lord was speaking of some as-of-yet future generation, that’s simply not being faithful to the text.
Absolutely not. In Ephesians 2, Apostle Paul speaking to Gentile believers on Christ, said they had become nigh to the “commonwealth of Israel”. In that same Chapter Paul refers to the prophets and Apostles as foundation stones in Christ’s Church, Lord Jesus Himself being the Chief Cornerstone, and that we in Christ are “builded together” with them.
And in Matthew 19:27-28 Jesus said His 12 Apostles will inherit 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel in His future Kingdom. So if one believes what Apostle Paul said in Ephesians about the “commonwealth of Israel”, it actually means Christ’s Church is the future Kingdom of Israel when Jesus returns, especially since Jesus is to inherit David’s throne and be King of Israel. This is actually what The Bible teaches as written. Now what others teach instead of what is written in God’s Word, those will have to answer to Lord Jesus when He returns.