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To: TomSmedley
So, in your theological construct, the New Covenant is inferior to the Old Covenant.

I do not have a theology to defend nor do I synthesize a construct. I simply believe what the Bible says rightly divided.

Are you confusing the old covenant with the Abrahamic Covenant? The old covenant is the law covenant which is a conditional covenant. Romans 9:1-4 indicates there are the "covenants" and the "giving of the law" as separate entities. If the "old" covenant did it's job, would there have been the necessity for it to be replaced by a "new" covenant? The new covenant replaces the old because it was temporary and could never have made Israel spiritually fit to be the kingdom of priests and a blessing, per the Abrahamic Covenant. The new covenant is an expansion of the Abrahamic Covenant for the people to be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth. That's what the new covenant is all about, making Israel spiritually fit, and it applies to the Body of Christ because we also need to be spiritually fit. The difference is members of the Body of Christ are made spiritually fit the instanct they are saved whereas Israel must wait until the second advent of Christ.

Abraham was able to embrace God's covenant for himself, and for his household, and for his descendents. Peter's pentecost proclamation preached that the blessings of the New Covenant were "unto you, and your children, and as many as the Lord shall call."

Peter proclaims at Pentecost "the promise" not the new covenant. Note Eph. 2:11,12 says "covenants of promise," with "covenants" plural and "promise" singular. There is a fundamental promise with Israel and the covenants come from that promise. The promise refers to the promise made to Abraham, which is the Abrahamic Covenant, for a land, a seed, or people to fill the land, and that the people would be a blessing.

However, in your theological construct, there is no room for entities such as families, churches, or civil governments. All that exists is the solitary soul, enrapt in exclusive communion with God. In your theological construct, there can be no such thing as a Christian nation, or church, or family. Just individual Christians.

God is forming the Body of Christ in His program for today in this age, or dispensation of grace. This is different than when He was forming Israel under His covenant program of law. God dealt with Israel on a national basis, and He will deal with them on that basis in the future after the Body of Christ has been raptured. That's why when the religious leadership of Israel, who spoke for all of Israel, rejected Christ then the Holy Spirit with the stoning of Stephen, God set His program with Israel aside temporarily and began forming the Body of Christ with the raising up of Paul as the Apostle of the Gentiles in the age of grace.

In God's program for today, individuals are saved as individuals, one by one, not by belonging to a Nation or to a church, nor according to being part of a family. We approach God as individuals and don't need a religious system, as did the Jews, to approach God. It's true that throughout the ages, individuals need to believe and have faith in the program God has in operation at that time. However, only relatively few Jews were saved during and after Jesus' earthly ministry and up until the time Israel was set aside temporarily. The nation as a whole wasn't saved so they could be the covenant people of God.

But God makes it very clear in His Word that He isn't dealing with a nation or even a church, but only through individuals. That's why belonging to a specific church or organization has no saving value. That's also why rituals, such as baptism, or praying a "sinner's prayer" or any other work of man doesn't save in and of itself. It's only faith that Christ died for my sins and that He was raised from the dead for my justification is what saves. If anything else is added, then God says it's a work which voids His grace. That's not a construct, it's what God clearly and plainly says in His Book.

God wants believers to fellowship and to be in fellowship. The fundamental unit God established is the family, but that does not mean there is family salvation. Assemblies of believers are to be established to edify the believers and as a support mechanism. God established nations, or nationalism, but only Israel as a Nation can be saved, but the saved can live in any nation. There is no such thing as a Christian nation, because God alone would need to do that. He is not blessing anyone or any unit in a visible sense today. Our blessings are spiritual and are in the heavens (Eph. 1:3). This again is what God says in His Book and is not some fabricated construct.

266 posted on 06/10/2002 9:42:11 AM PDT by gracebeliever
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To: gracebeliever
I do not have a theology to defend nor do I synthesize a construct. I simply believe what the Bible says rightly divided.

Christian:Do you mormons believe the Bible is the Word of God?

Mormon Missionary:Yes. (insofar as it is correctly interpreted)

Isn't "rightly dividing" the Bible the same thing as synthesizing a construct? Creating a theology?

267 posted on 06/10/2002 9:58:51 AM PDT by TomSmedley
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