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To: fortheDeclaration
After the Rapture and the close of this Dispensation, a saved person will go back to the way saved people were before the Church age began, no indwelling Holy Spirit, a return to being either a saved Jew or Gentile, but not a 'Christian'.

But the criteria doesn't change. You are either washed by the blood of Jesus or not.

David was not a Christian, Abraham wasn't, Moses wasn't, Noah wasn't, Abel wasn't, they were Jews and Gentiles.

But they lived by faith.

Hebrews 11:39-40 And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

In dispensationalism is there a belief that those of the old testament period did not have to have Faith in the coming Messiah to be saved?

980 posted on 11/14/2007 7:57:45 AM PST by wmfights (LUKE 9:49-50 , MARK 9:38-41)
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To: wmfights; fortheDeclaration; Lord_Calvinus; Dr. Eckleburg; tabsternager
"David was not a Christian, Abraham wasn't, Moses wasn't, Noah wasn't, Abel wasn't, they were Jews and Gentiles."

But they lived by faith.

I think part of the problem is the definition of "Christian". All the patriarchs had a hope in the redeemer of God’s people. That redeemer we know as Jesus Christ.

Regarding Abraham, the father of the faithful, Jesus said, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad." (John 8:56)

In whatever sense Abraham saw the day of Jesus Christ he was a "Christian".

The problem I think is with the tripartite view of humankind; Jew/gentile/ Christian, vs. the more prevalent biblical view of two groups, the righteous and the unrighteous.

Messianics don’t like to be called "Christian" because it is too gentile. Do we now need a fourth category; Jew/gentile/ Christian/Messianic? When are we going to stop dividing the people of God among various unimportant labels?

Are believing Abraham and David my brothers in the faith, or is their faith so radically different from mine that we do not both share the same adoption as sons of God? I think the implications of the latter position on soteriology are enormous.

983 posted on 11/14/2007 8:23:25 AM PST by topcat54 ("Dispensationalism is a disease ... as contagious as polio.")
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To: wmfights
[After the Rapture and the close of this Dispensation, a saved person will go back to the way saved people were before the Church age began, no indwelling Holy Spirit, a return to being either a saved Jew or Gentile, but not a 'Christian'.]

But the criteria doesn't change. You are either washed by the blood of Jesus or not.

Yes, but the results of ones faith does change.

A person who believes today his body becomes a temple of the living God.

That is uniquely a Christian blessing, and it not given to the other saints.

[ David was not a Christian, Abraham wasn't, Moses wasn't, Noah wasn't, Abel wasn't, they were Jews and Gentiles. ]

But they lived by faith. Hebrews 11:39-40 And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us. In dispensationalism is there a belief that those of the old testament period did not have to have Faith in the coming Messiah to be saved?

That is not what we are talking about.

We are talking about what makes a Christian distinctive from the Jew or Gentile of the OT.

Today, a Christian has something that had never been given or will be given again, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit making his body a living temple. (1Cor.3:16)

When the Rapture occurs and anyone is saved after that, that will not occur with them, they will be either a saved Jew or saved Gentile, not a Christian.

1,055 posted on 11/14/2007 1:09:27 PM PST by fortheDeclaration (We must beat the Democrats or the country will be ruined! - Lincoln)
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