Posted on 07/19/2016 7:32:29 AM PDT by Hebrews 11:6
Christianity’s Major “Pivot-Points”
Recently as I meditated on Scripture, the Holy Spirit drew my attention and interest to how a certain verse embodies a pivoting or inflection-point in Christianity’s long story. That caused me to want to derive and list all of the major pivot-points which have occurred—that is, pivotal incidents which substantially changed the course of events in the unfolding of God’s redemptive plan. Your list might be somewhat different, but all these seem to me to be hugely impactful. Chronologically, they are:
CREATION—God creates our physical universe to house us and then He creates us, the first physical creatures with spirits capable of interacting with Him. Imagine the angels’ astonishment!
ADAM'S FALL—The first man’s rebellion starts us on our long road. After their own massive rebellion, perhaps the angels are not astonished at man’s.
THE FLOOD—Following man’s deadly persistence in rebelling, God restarts humanity, thereby demonstrating conclusively the deadly consequences of such rebellion.
THE CONFUSING OF LANGUAGES—After the Tower of Babel, God forcefully disperses an unwilling humanity, in order to permit the rapid population growth needed to produce the billions of people to whom God plans to offer redemption.
ABRAHAM'S CALL & FAITH—God begins specifically executing His redemptive plan, beginning with and through just one willing man who trusts Him to make him “the father of many nations.”
EXODUS / LAW-GIVING / PROMISED LAND—God extracts His Chosen People from Egypt, gives them His perfect Law, and eventually settles their willing remnant into His Promised Land.
ISRAEL'S REJECTIONS OF, & BY, GOD—The Israelites resolutely and repeatedly reject God for 1,400 years, so He rejects them by exiling them, initially for seventy years but finally for two millennia.
JESUS CHRIST'S CRUCIFIXION, RESURRECTION, & ASCENSION—The Pinnacle of Pivot-Points. Everything changes.
THE GIVING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT—For the first time the Spirit indwells every believer.
THE CHURCH'S CREATION—The first believers join together corporately in an organic process that still continues today.
THE WELCOMING OF GENTILES—Paul and Peter make the persuasive case for the church to offer God’s salvation to everyone.
THE NEW TESTAMENT'S WRITING, ASSEMBLY, & DISSEMINATION—The Apostles and a few others flesh out the new faith and reveal essential new doctrines, especially such as…
GRACE SUPERCEDES LAW (SALVATION BY GRACE)—1,400 years of Israel’s abject failure to keep the Law is revealed to have been inevitable, since the Law’s purpose is only to make us conscious of our sinfulness and helplessness, and thus of our need for salvation. Salvation is not by our works but by grace through faith.
THE GREAT COMMISSION—Needed anew for every generation and still being carried out aggressively today, now throughout the entire globe.
PROTESTANT REFORMATION—The Church is split asunder and the Bible is made available to all believers.
THE JEWS RETURN TO ISRAEL—In 1948, two millennia after their exile, the Jews reconstitute Israel, exactly as prophesied.
REVELATION'S EVENTS—Coming soon to your neighborhood.
The Simon who wanted to buy the power to confer the holy Ghost (which no Apostle or any other human has ever possessed) was a "believer" but unsaved, whether baptized or not (water baptizing does not and cannot save).
The "believers" encountered by Paul in Ephesus were not hearers or believers of the saving Gospel (though accounted as disciples of Scripture teachers). Paul recruited, enlisted, and inducted them by baptism into the discipleship of Jesus' ordained teacher(s); they then each believed redemptively, and were graced in an unusual and glorious way by the Holy Ghost, pursuant to their exercise of a saving faith.
SM also says: As I said, it is not automatic.
No, there is nothing automatic about the gift of the Indwellingness of The Holy Ghost. It is entirely of the Will of The Father, through the agency of The Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13), and it only occurs when He knows that the receiver has yielded him/herself to a joint commitment which will never be abandoned (Hebrews 13:6). How can God know that? Because He has foreknowledge.
Regarding water baptism (there are six other baptisms in the NT, not counting ritual cleansing in the mikvah for Temple worship and service); it is administered by fallible men for the purpose of signifying a believer's commitment; and is carried out as the public ritual of induction into the temporal process of sanctification of the new recruit. By it he comes under the authority and ownership of the Father, of The Son, and of The Holy Ghost. Human-administered water baptism does not confer God's retraction of punishment for sins. Only one's complete faith in the substitutionary punishment and death of God's Beloved Incarnate Son can cause the transaction of suffering of The Lamb of God for ones sins, and the imputation of The Lamb's innocence to the believer, to occur. With it, The Father, reconciled by the Redeemer's blood price for ownership of the yielded believer(s), judicially frees the supplicant from guilt, and can then offer intimate fellowship to the saved one(s). With that verdict He confers gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit as the true, earnest, internal, eternal seal of the permanence of that exchange.
That probably sounds a little complicated, but think it through, and you'll get it.
On the other matter regarding parable of the sower and the seed (Mt. 13:3-9), Jesus told it to demonstrate to his disciples that those who could or would not understand it were not saved (v. 15), and did not have spiritual discernment. In any case, He says that the "seed" represents the Word(s) of the Kingdom (v. 19). It does not represent The Holy Ghost, who is of the same substance of, inseparable from, and never absent from the Father and The Son. So including the terms of that parable in your statement to which I responded was a little odd, a non sequitur, I thought.
“For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”
Paul was speaking to the Corinthian believers ... and he says they were ALL baptized into one body ... that can only be true if spirit baptism happens at conversion.
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You conclude: “that can only be true if spirit baptism happens at conversion”. The scriptures say no such thing. In fact they say that the Holy Spirit can pretty much do what He wants to do. That is what I am trying to explain to you: He is the Potter and we are the clay!
Also, please stop trying to make rules out of the scriptures! The Law has been fulfilled, by Jesus Christ. The “New Commandment” that Jesus gave was “that you love one another!” Note that that commandment was also the old Commandment, it just wasn’t followed. If you are fulled with the Holy Spirit, then his commandments have been written on you heart.
There is no transition between the Old Testament and the New Testament! Everything was prophesied in Old Testament. The “New Testament” is more like a “Renewed Covenant” in which Jesus tried to reset mankind to follow the core Commandments of the Old Testament. After you go through the Bible a dozen times of so, you will see this pattern emerge.
As a member of a works based religion, catholiciism, you do not comprehend the Salvation THEN sanctification reality of the Holy Spirit IN the believer. The Potter and clay reference is regarding the life of those who believe in Christ, aside from you taking it out of context. But then, catholiciism teaches you that you eat the actual body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ at catholic Mass, so anything can be believed in such an 'other religion'.
As a member of a works based religion, catholiciism, you do not comprehend the Salvation THEN sanctification reality of the Holy Spirit IN the believer.
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How you can conclude from anything that I have ever posted that I am a Catholic, is beyond by comprehension!
If Paul was speaking to believers (which he was), and he said they had all been baptized by the spirit (and he did) ... then OF NECESSITY that has to happen at conversion ... otherwise there may have been some who were not baptized into Christ yet ... i.e. your erroneous position.
If it happens to ALL ... then the only time that can be is initial conversion.
Paul refutes your position, where some Christians are indwelt and some others are not. Further, your position undermines the essential unity of the church. There is no have and have nots in the church of Christ. We all have been made to drink of one Spirit. To suggest otherwise is to place direct division into the church. If you view the church as those who have the spirit and those who don't ... you really do not understand conversion.
There is no transition between the Old Testament and the New Testament!
Of course there is ... the fundamental difference between Gods people in the OT and the NT is the indwelling of the HS. The Mosaic covenant did not guarantee regeneration ... the New Covenant does ... it is the entrance requirement for the covenant.
There are NO unregenerate believers in Christ church ... regeneration is how you become a member of His body.
Everything was prophesied in Old Testament
Show me the OT prophecy where the church is predicted. This will tell a lot about the Biblical hermeneutic you are applying to the text.
The “New Testament” is more like a “Renewed Covenant” in which Jesus tried to reset mankind to follow the core Commandments of the Old Testament.
Nonsense ... Jer. 31:31 and Ezekiel 36 describe a NEW covenant, not a renewed covenant ... it is not like the Old covenant ... because regeneration was not guaranteed under the old covenant ... it is under the new.
After you go through the Bible a dozen times of so, you will see this pattern emerge.
Only if you are predisposed to look for it ...
In the Upper Room Discourse (see John 14 and the latter portion of chapter 13), Jesus introduced a New Covenant. He took the occasion of the Passover Seder to do this. Jesus introduced His closest friends to the Dispensation of God’s Grace in Christ for ANY/ALL who believe in Him as their Savior and Lord. This results in faithing (the verb form), living in a New Relationship with The Lord from Heaven who took flesh and dwelt among us.
I hope you don’t make life-or-death decisions on such little evidence. The “Pope” referred to there is Msgr. Charles Pope, who is one of the “overcomers” or “victors” that Jesus refers to in His letters to the seven churches. There is always a remnant.
Yes, but if you think of this as a replacement to the other Covenants, then you are missing the point of YHWH’s Salvation Plan. All of the Covenants are still in place, although the conditional ones have turned out as it has been written in the Bible.
Nice try; I am a regular poster on the Charles Pope threads. I’m not a catholic, as you might have surmised. Catholiciism is leading sincere people to Hell, teaching them to not stand on the fundamental Promise of God but to strive to obtain that which GOD has told them is by Grace alone. Catholiciism has made a relationship with GOD something excessively complicated and works based. JESUS, God with us, explained the simplicity to Nicodemus (John 3). There were no addendums to the healing when anyone looked upon the brass snake believing God would heal them. They were ALL healed that stood on the Promise of God.
Please read Revelation 2 and 3 again. In every church there is always a faithful remnant that are called ‘overcomers’ or ‘victors’. Charles Pope gets it, and avoids most of the Babylonian influences in his ministry. You can’t change the Catholic Church because it has been accounted for in YHWH’s plan, and in the end, Jesus wins. Let not your heart be troubled.
Show me the OT prophecy where the church is predicted. This will tell a lot about the Biblical hermeneutic you are applying to the text.
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That is relatively easy to do if you have eyes to see or ears to hear.
First there is the first promise to Abram:
Genesis 12
1 Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country,
From your family And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
2 I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Nelson, Thomas. Holy Bible, New King James Version (NKJV) (p. 9). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
So YHWH (that is the name translated LORD here) promises a blessing to “all the families of the earth”. That includes the “family” you call the church.
Now specifically as to the Messiah (the Elect One):
Isaiah 42
1 “Behold! My Servant whom I uphold,
My Elect One in whom My soul delights!
I have put My Spirit upon Him;
He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.
Nelson, Thomas. Holy Bible, New King James Version (NKJV) (p. 703). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
Again, more specifically:
Isaiah 42
6 “I, the LORD, have called You in righteousness,
And will hold Your hand;
I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people,
As a light to the Gentiles,
Nelson, Thomas. Holy Bible, New King James Version (NKJV) (p. 703). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
Just in case you missed it the first two times, he reiterates in
Isaiah 49
6 Indeed He says,
‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant
To raise up the tribes of Jacob,
And to restore the preserved ones of Israel;
I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles,
That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ”
Nelson, Thomas. Holy Bible, New King James Version (NKJV) (p. 712). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
As to the timing of the Church Age, look at
Daniel’s recording of the prophecy of the
seventy weeks of years. The first seven and sixty-two weeks
accounted for Jesus’ first coming.
Then there is a final week for completing YHWH work with Israel.
While not specified by Gabriel, the gap between the first 69 weeks and the 70th week is covered by the length of the final diaspora. The final destruction of the Temple and the final Diaspora that determine the time of the Church Age, is covered in Hosea 6:1-2. To understand this you have to remember the “one day is a thousand years” rule.
Be a Berean! Search the Scriptures! Let the Holy Spirit guide you to the Truth!
As I suspected ...
If its not IN the text then you are hallucinating your theology ONTO the text. And given your use of the Abraham passage ... that is exactly what you are doing. There is no mention of a NT church separate and distinct from the nation of Israel.
So YHWH (that is the name translated LORD here) promises a blessing to “all the families of the earth”. That includes the “family” you call the church.
Like I said ... you are reading what you want into the text of Scripture ... it says nothing of a NT church as a separate and distinct people of God from the Jews.
What you need to go find is an OT passage that predicts the old covenant being replaced by a new covenant whereby both Jews and Gentile are members by way of regeneration.
As far as the Daniel citation ... I agree with you 100%.
The Trinity is not “in the text”. The Old Testament is not replaced by the New Testament. The New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. But, not to worry, there will be plenty of time to sort this all out during the Millennial Kingdom. Oh! Wait! “Millennial Kingdom” is not in the text! Sorry! ;-)
Apples and Oranges my friend ...
So I will exit this conversation before it becomes unedifying.
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