Davy
Well-Known Member
I was going with your roll until this one.
Yeshua did say what you are asserting, that if it were possible, even the elect would be deceived. The neat thing in that statement that I think gets missed by some is the "if it were possible". That is a positive statement! The implication is that it isn't possible to deceive the elect!
But I am not sure that the church is in view here, if that is what you were alluding to. Allow me explain....
The NT was not in hand when Yeshua made this statement. He is a Jewish Messiah speaking to literate Jewish brethren. They knew the scriptures. The Ekklesia or Church would not begin for almost 2 months.
A hermeneutic principle comes in to play. How was elect used in scripture prior to Yeshua mentioning the elect? Elect is only mentioned 4 times in the OT and all of them in Isaiah. The first (Isaiah 42:1) seems pretty clear it is a reference to the future Messiah. However, all the other references are to pretty much of Israel. Isaiah 45:4 and Isaiah 65:9 seem to be referencing Israel.
Even the passage in Isaiah 65 which talks of the elect. I know, I know, there is a reference in verse 17 of that chapter regarding a new heaven and new earth. But the passage also states that the people being talked about will bear children and have offspring. It talks of a child dying at 100 years and a sinner being accursed. So all of the references in this passage, the new heaven and new earth must be the restored heaven and earth that starts the Messianic kingdom. The New Heaven and New Earth of Revelation, death has been cast into the lake of fire, so it cannot be the same reference as in Isaiah 65.
So I tend to side with the elect Yeshua is talking about as being Israel, not the church. Now if you were intending to mean God's elect and that being Israel, then I could go along with that.
It is true, that those that are part of the Church are also God's elect. But so was Cyrus of Persia. And we have no real basis in scripture to make a conclusion that he was saved in any way. Just that he was God's chosen/elect/anointed to allow the Hebrews to return to the land after the captivity in Babylon.
I really don't understand the difficulty you're having with this. It's simply about God's chosen with the word "elect".
The timing Jesus was speaking of about that coming pseudo-Christ in Matthew 24 was in the future, to the final generation. Since you can't seem to grasp the concept of His elect linked with the future timing when the Antichrist comes at the end of this world, then I can understand how your mind would be all twisted and screwed up trying to interpret what I said. The only thing you got correct of what you said I said was how it's not possible for Christ's very elect to be deceived.