Of course that's true, but are you supposing that's that I'm doing? Creating doctrine from a single passage?
Ephesians 2 is rather extensive on it, and Romans 9-11 has a lot to say also. And there is more beside.
Much love!
The Rapture: Too Good to Be True?
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Ephesians 2 is rather extensive on it, and Romans 9-11 has a lot to say also. And there is more beside.
Much love!
Yes, and people often fail to see what is right in front of them.
Let's just go the bottom line. What you said here. Yes, let us both simply believe whatever it is we want to believe.
I also have trust in the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and I believe His Word.
Much love!
Another very interesting point of view!
I've studied many different things, but primarily the Bible itself, learning and understanding what it does and doesn't say.
One thing I'll say, reading and listening (audiobook) to the same book continuously literally hundreds of times over the course of a month or two can give some fresh insights. As well as it's usefulness in renewing the mind.
Much love!
I think this Is a poor translation in archaic English which only makes it harder for a contemporary mind to grasp.
The New King James is more accurate, but still keeps the poetic sentence structure of the Old kjv:
19 Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, 20 and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, 21 whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.
Peter's understanding wasn't as deep as Paul's and his Grammer wasn't particularly good, but in the modern English the passage is very straightforward. In context this was preached in the temple, from Solomon's "porch" which I believe was not in the court of the gentiles, which would mean that this was preached to Jews under the law of Moses. So Peter preached the message of repentance to the Jews who were preached Christ from the old testament scriptures for centuries. Jews typically believed that they were chosen for Salvation because of their blood relationship to Abraham and their observance of Law.
Most of those Jews might have heard of Jesus or even seen His miracles or crucifixion, but until they could see Him as Messiah and Lord, they couldn't receive Him.
To this very day some Jews are converted to Christianity by literally seeing Jesus. I met a Jewish born Catholic who saw Jesus walking among the dead after a fire fight in Viet Nam, and heard the testimony of a few others that were converted to faith in Christ by visions.
Verse 21 is the explanation of where the Messiah went in His resurrection and the promise of His return at the restoration of Israel promised by the prophets.
Replacement theology is a bad joke. Paul was clear that God blinded Israel in judgment for the purposes of the spread of the gospel, but with a future restoration in completion of all His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as the great promises of the prophets. Replacement theology came from people that hated the Jews, considered them all the "synagogue of Satan", and persecuted them to the point of collecting them, murdering them, and burying them in mass graves.
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OK, you believe His word. Is there one church or two ?
Does Christ return at the gathering of the elect and in judgement, or does He return twice, once secretly and then for His elect?
Are the saints the elect?
Or is the church the Gentile ecclesia?
Honestly, I have no clue what you believe about these things because you said one thing and supplied verses in support of the exact opposite (regarding who the church is) and still have no explanation of how the church could be raptured before the great tribulation, yet be on Earth to be beheaded by the Antichrist for their testimony.
I don't know what you call that, but I call it confusion and understanding compromised by carnal reasoning. The scriptures say what they say. If you disagree with what they say, your argument is with God, not me.
No doctrine of the Bible exists in a vacuum. For example someone who believes national ethinic Israel is over in God's eyes will of necessity a very different end-times and second coming view than someone who believes God will save and restore national ethinic Israel at the end of this age.
Much love!
This is your dichotomy, not mine. Obviously if someone dies or otherwise leaves the planet before the time of great tribulation, they won't be here for, it, even though someone else will be.
Much love!
No, I don't know what you believe, because your responses are frequently evasive. I know that you commonly test other posters (not just me) and while the scriptures exhort us to test the spirits, that test is a simple one to satisfy that they are of God, not an ongoing test to expose faults and justify dismissing what they say. That only appears as duplicity.
Am I an offense to you?
Have I brought lies to the table?
Are my hermeneutics unsound?
I'm not offended by you, but I don't relish wasting my time in proving from scripture what Christians should already understand. I don't like serving milk. I'm a baker and my bread is good. It strengthens the weak and encourages the struggling. It gives health to the sick and light for the eyes.
Be satisfied in yourself if it eases your mind. I've found a congregation of saints and the Lord willing, can serve those with an ear to hear.
" Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
This restoration, do you see it as having been possible at that time had the nation repented? As do I?
Much love!
I find that members on this forum frequently make assumptions about what others think, what they mean, even though the words can be taken in a variety of ways. I seek clarity without presumption, so I ask lots of questions.
I also always prefer to be clear about what I think, again, knowing words can be taken in various ways.
Much love!
With God anything is possible, but:
Isaiah 53:10
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
That's what's called honesty in speech. I'm not a flatterer, and pretense serves no one.
Is there one church or two ?
Ekklesia appears singular and plural, the plural being applied to local assemblies, and the singular to the overall assembly.
Does Christ return at the gathering of the elect and in judgement, or does He return twice, once secretly and then for His elect?
Jesus comes from heaven to earth, and when He does, both the Chosen and the Gentiles will be gathered, the Chosen being returned to their promised land, as was promised, and the Gentiles being gathered to be judged.
As far as a "secret return", I don't subscribe to such characterizations, I don't see that in the Bible, a "secret return". Jesus returns bodily to the earth in what we commonly call the "second coming". Regarding the harpadzo of the church, this is never refered to as a coming or advent of Christ.
And don't lightly dismiss this distinction.
Are the saints the elect?
"The" elect? Jesus is "the Elect Servant". We are "elect in Him". Israel is the "Elect Nation." Saints are the holy ones, and that term is used both of unregenerate OT faithful, and the NT regenerate believers. We should look at context to know exactly what we are looking at in each case.
Or is the church the Gentile ecclesia?
In the OT, God's covenant was with Israel, and gentiles would have to become part of Israel to participate in it.
When Jesus came, He came "the the lost sheep of Israel", although there were some gentiles to whom He ministered.
After the Jews continued in their national rejection of Jesus, the Gospel was sent directly to the Gentiles, though, as Paul would explain, "blindness has happened to a part of Israel", that there remained a remnent. So then as Israel was front and center, some Gentiles were still included. Now Gentiles are front and center, yet still some Jews are included.
Jesus came to Israel, to offer to them the promised kingdom. It would have come through His death and resurrection, and the time of Jacob's trouble, yet it would have come, had they received Him. God's promises are true.
The time will yet come when Jesus will restore His chosen nation to their promised land, and Israel will retain their national identity as the "head of the nations", in regeneration. But the time is now that "in Christ is neither Greek nor Jew".
and still have no explanation of how the church could be raptured before the great tribulation, yet be on Earth to be beheaded by the Antichrist for their testimony.
Anyone who is here is here for it, and anyone who is not, is not. Where is the issue? How does that change if God removes the Christians from the earth before the 70th week begins?
Revelation 12:17 KJV
17) And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Much love!
I call it sharing your negative opinions of others. Is it helpful? Accurate? What does this kind of speech accomplish? What does it show about how you think of yourself and how you think of others?
Our words reveal ourselves much more than they reveal others.
Much love!
Yes Jesus had to died, of course! All would be fulfilled. He would have been betrayed by Judas, put to death by the Romans, and raised from the dead. Had the nation received Him, I think that Rome would have marched on Israel, the time of Jacob's trouble, and Jesus would have returned to rescue the nation. All would be fulfilled, all would be real, including Peter's continued offer of the kingdom, and the return of Jesus.
No gentile church, no rapture, none of that. The Bible would have been a very different book from what we had today. But as God always knew, but did not reveal, Israel would reject, Gentiles would be called out, and Paul would teach them the revelation of these mysteries, God's wisdom hidden in the times past.
Much love!
How long will the land mourn, And the herbs of every field wither? The beasts and birds are consumed, For the wickedness of those who dwell there, Because they said, “He will not see our final end.” Jeremiah 12:4
God did reveal that Israel would reject Him multiple times in the prophets. Jesus quoted one when He explained the reason that He spoke in parables. Their judgment was predetermined, even from the writing of the law.
13 Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. 14 And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says:
‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand,
And seeing you will see and not perceive;
15 For the hearts of this people have grown dull.
Their ears are hard of hearing,
And their eyes they have closed,
Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
So that I should heal them.’ Matthew 13:-13-15
25 that Moses commanded the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying: 26 “Take this Book of the Law, and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there as a witness against you; 27 for I know your rebellion and your stiff neck. If today, while I am yet alive with you, you have been rebellious against the Lord, then how much more after my death?
Deuteronomy 31:25-27
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