[Greektim]

Originally Posted by tonybones2112

Eph. 1:22 And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
23 Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.

Eph 4:4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;

Tim, forgive me for saying this, but I think you are hung up on prefabbed, preconceived scholastic theological "systems". The answer to your, to me, incorrect assumption here can be found by reading Eph. 3, backing up two chapters, reading, then going forward 3 chapters, and letting the Scriptures interpret themselves rather than interpreting them through a prefabbed theological "system". Correct me if I am wrong, I think you want to force the present church, the present Body, back into Acts 2 under Peter. That church no longer exists and will not exist until such a time as the departure of this Church out of the world takes place.

Ro 11:17 And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;
Ro 11:19 Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in.
Ro 11:23 And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again.
Ro 11:24 For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be [B]graffed into their own olive tree?/B]

Just as the three Biblical dispensations are found in Eph. 2, all three churches I demonstrated to you is found in these passages in Romans 11:

The Olive Tree- The Messianic/Apostolic church of Peter, James, and John, Believing Israel, you prophesied church of Matt. 16.

The Wild Branches- The mystery Body of Eph. 3. made up of Jews and Gentiles, equal. Nowhere in the OT was it ever said, spoken, prophesied, that Gentiles would ever be equal to Israel.

Gen. 26:4 And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed;

Gen. 28:14 And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

Isaiah 2:2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

In the OT no Gentile could be exalted without the exaltation of Israel. "But now":

Ro 11:11 I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.

It is nowhere revealed in the OT that the Gentiles would receive salvation APART from Israel and her rise, but now, through Israel's fall we are made nigh by the blood of Christ. Don;t read your theology brother, read Eph. 2.

The Natural Branches- National Israel that was broken off for unbelief but will be grafted in again in the Tribulation when they again believe to form the basis for the Millenial Kingdom under Christ.

I don't know what "progressive dispensationalism" is. I mean, I know 20 people who claim to be P/Ds, and have 20 different definitions of what it is.
Paul's revelation of the three dispensations was not "prograssive", it was hid in God before Genesis 1:1 until revealed to Paul. Brother Tim, if you're going to understand what I am saying then you are going to have chuck "progressive" dispensationalism and understand progressive revelation.
Peter, James, and John had no idea of Paul's message in Eph. 2 and 3. Thus:

Ga 2:9 And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision.

The Olive Tree was the Messianic church prophesied in Matt.16 and fulfilled in Acts 2, Believing Israel. The Natural Branches, national Israel, were broken off in Acts 7 with the murder of Stephen. The Wild Branches were called by Paul, the Jewish-Gentile Body, and grafted into the Olive Tree in Acts 15, as recounted in Gal. 2.

Your turn...

Grace and peace

Tony

I am trying to stay with the concept that the Church is a mystery. My last post did not have anything to do with a prefabbed theological construct. But I'll admit I do that. But you would be foolish to say that you don't. For me, I let the Scriptures speak for themselves and interpret them as an observer. Also, my Bibliology versus your Bibliology will play a part in this. I don't see a "church" in the OT or in the Trib. I see the Church as a distinct paranthesis starting at Acts 2 & ending at the Rapture. Acts uses ekklesia multiple ways (see, different views on the Bible).

Anyhow, I'll readily admit that Ephesians teaches things about the Church. Goodness, that is an understatement. But I would ask for one passage that states the Church is a mystery. It seems you are turning what might be implied (the Church is a mystery) back onto the text (i.e. a prefabbed construct system).

[Greektim]

Originally Posted by Greektim

I am trying to stay with the concept that the Church is a mystery. My last post did not have anything to do with a prefabbed theological construct. But I'll admit I do that. But you would be foolish to say that you don't. For me, I let the Scriptures speak for themselves and interpret them as an observer. Also, my Bibliology versus your Bibliology will play a part in this. I don't see a "church" in the OT or in the Trib. I see the Church as a distinct paranthesis starting at Acts 2 & ending at the Rapture. Acts uses ekklesia multiple ways (see, different views on the Bible).

Anyhow, I'll readily admit that Ephesians teaches things about the Church. Goodness, that is an understatement. But I would ask for one passage that states the Church is a mystery. It seems you are turning what might be implied (the Church is a mystery) back onto the text (i.e. a prefabbed construct system).

Ah-hem...

[tonybones2112]

Originally Posted by Greektim

Ah-hem...

Tim, there are few things in the world I love more than standing, you have to stand since they are so petrified their legs won't bend, but stand and discuss with a petrified, stone-hard Calvinist the doctrines of preterism, pedobaptism, sublapsariansism, supralapsarianism, infralapsarianism. the errors of Sabellianism with a Jesus Only/Oneness Pentecostal or Arianism with a JW. Okay, I know all the big words and am fully equipped, as Paul said, to be all things to all men. Yeah, sometimes I forget the difference between Eusebius and Origen, I have Adult ADD and see reality through 20 TV screens, rather than the one normal humans see it through.

Your system of theology is different from mine, yours was taught to you by someone who was taught by someone who was taught by someone who was taught that the pattern for the present say church is founded in Acts 2 with water baptism, tithing, the Lord's Supper, confession of sin(s) to God and the commission of Matt. 28. What they didn't teach you was that we are merely grafted into this Second Church in the Scriptures to maintain unity of the Body, and that for Acts 2 to be the pattern for present church practice you must:

1. Manifest the signs of Mark 16.
2. Have all material things in common.
3. Be living in the fearful expectation of the Tribulation of Joel 2 that Peter preached in Acts 2.

"Progression dispensationalism"?

No, progressive revelation. The first person I ever heard use this term was Dr. Peter Ruckman and he uses the term and the concept to great effect until it crosses denominational doctrine and he abandons it. As boith brother George and i have demonstrated in dispensational understanding is you have to go back to the time period and consider what Peter knew at the time he preached, consider his compirmising the Messianic church message with those who still kept the Law, and then his getting straightened out by Paul and Barnabas at the council at Jerusalem in Acts 15 as recounted in Gal.2 and his subsequent understanding of the difference in his message and Paul's on Law vs Grace.

You and I, apart from most in the forum, can "go to the Greek" and "go to the Hebrew" and not offend each other, most forum members are sensitive because many use the practice to impeach the authority of the definition of the English with referneces to either language. I use it to clarify. Let's look in Acts 6 and 7:

Acts 6:9 Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen.

ACts 7:1 Then said the high priest, Are these things so?
2 And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran,

Luke records Stephen's speech in Greek, but did Stephen speak in Hebrew or Greek?

Ac 7:38 This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us:

Luke records this as the "eccelsia", if Stephen had spoken in Hebrew the word would have been "yaqqaha", gathering, assembly:

Gen. 49:8 Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down before thee.
9 Judah is a lion’s whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up?
10 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.
11 Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes:
12 His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.

In Genesis 49 Jacob speaks of "the last days"(Gen. 49:1) of this "church", "gathering", "ecclesia" "yaqqaha". In Acts 7, Stephen speaks of it as being at Sinai as God is giving Moses the Law. In this passage Paul calls the Third Church in Scripture, the Body of Christ at the time of the Rapture, "episunagoge", gathered together in once place:

2Th 2:1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,

Without regard to Larkin, Scofield, Ruckman, Jamiesson-Fausset-Brown, AT Robertson, Darby, Baker, Stam, or any other commentator, I consult the method of Isaiah 28:9-13 and Hosea 12:10 and find not 7 churches, not 1 church, not 12 churches, but 3 in Scripture:

1. The church in the wilderness: national Israel
2. The Messianic/Apostolic church: Believing Israel, the Kingdom Of Priests, that was rooted in John the Baptist, Christ's earthly ministry, the church that was born on the day of Pentecost and would have and will go through the Tribulation. In Revelation 1:6 they are the "priests" that will serve the earthly kingdom promised to Abraham and his descendants, we are the "kings" who will reign in heavenly places.
3. The Body of Christ that was not prophesied and hid in God, Jews and Gentiles in one body co-equal, a concept impossible to understand by OT Jewish standards, which is why, with it's secret status of being revealed to no man until Paul, it is called a "mystery". Read Eph. 3. Read the OT with regard to the extreme separatist standards of Israel, in their fleshly, spiritual, and racial bigotry towards any nation outside their own.

Tim, my "system" is founded and based on comparing Scripture with Scripture and like the Scriptures, it is not hard to understand, it's hard to believe.

Grace and peace brother

Tony

[Greektim]

Originally Posted by tonybones2112

Tim, there are few things in the world I love more than standing, you have to stand since they are so petrified their legs won't bend, but stand and discuss with a petrified, stone-hard Calvinist the doctrines of preterism, pedobaptism, sublapsariansism, supralapsarianism, infralapsarianism. the errors of Sabellianism with a Jesus Only/Oneness Pentecostal or Arianism with a JW. Okay, I know all the big words and am fully equipped, as Paul said, to be all things to all men. Yeah, sometimes I forget the difference between Eusebius and Origen, I have Adult ADD and see reality through 20 TV screens, rather than the one normal humans see it through.

Your system of theology is different from mine, yours was taught to you by someone who was taught by someone who was taught by someone who was taught that the pattern for the present say church is founded in Acts 2 with water baptism, tithing, the Lord's Supper, confession of sin(s) to God and the commission of Matt. 28. What they didn't teach you was that we are merely grafted into this Second Church in the Scriptures to maintain unity of the Body, and that for Acts 2 to be the pattern for present church practice you must:

1. Manifest the signs of Mark 16.
2. Have all material things in common.
3. Be living in the fearful expectation of the Tribulation of Joel 2 that Peter preached in Acts 2.

"Progression dispensationalism"?

No, progressive revelation. The first person I ever heard use this term was Dr. Peter Ruckman and he uses the term and the concept to great effect until it crosses denominational doctrine and he abandons it. As boith brother George and i have demonstrated in dispensational understanding is you have to go back to the time period and consider what Peter knew at the time he preached, consider his compirmising the Messianic church message with those who still kept the Law, and then his getting straightened out by Paul and Barnabas at the council at Jerusalem in Acts 15 as recounted in Gal.2 and his subsequent understanding of the difference in his message and Paul's on Law vs Grace.

You and I, apart from most in the forum, can "go to the Greek" and "go to the Hebrew" and not offend each other, most forum members are sensitive because many use the practice to impeach the authority of the definition of the English with referneces to either language. I use it to clarify. Let's look in Acts 6 and 7:

Acts 6:9 Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen.

ACts 7:1 Then said the high priest, Are these things so?
2 And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran,

Luke records Stephen's speech in Greek, but did Stephen speak in Hebrew or Greek?

Ac 7:38 This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us:

Luke records this as the "eccelsia", if Stephen had spoken in Hebrew the word would have been "yaqqaha", gathering, assembly:

Gen. 49:8 Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down before thee.
9 Judah is a lion’s whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up?
10 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.
11 Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes:
12 His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.

In Genesis 49 Jacob speaks of "the last days"(Gen. 49:1) of this "church", "gathering", "ecclesia" "yaqqaha". In Acts 7, Stephen speaks of it as being at Sinai as God is giving Moses the Law. In this passage Paul calls the Third Church in Scripture, the Body of Christ at the time of the Rapture, "episunagoge", gathered together in once place:

2Th 2:1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,

Without regard to Larkin, Scofield, Ruckman, Jamiesson-Fausset-Brown, AT Robertson, Darby, Baker, Stam, or any other commentator, I consult the method of Isaiah 28:9-13 and Hosea 12:10 and find not 7 churches, not 1 church, not 12 churches, but 3 in Scripture:

1. The church in the wilderness: national Israel
2. The Messianic/Apostolic church: Believing Israel, the Kingdom Of Priests, that was rooted in John the Baptist, Christ's earthly ministry, the church that was born on the day of Pentecost and would have and will go through the Tribulation. In Revelation 1:6 they are the "priests" that will serve the earthly kingdom promised to Abraham and his descendants, we are the "kings" who will reign in heavenly places.
3. The Body of Christ that was not prophesied and hid in God, Jews and Gentiles in one body co-equal, a concept impossible to understand by OT Jewish standards, which is why, with it's secret status of being revealed to no man until Paul, it is called a "mystery". Read Eph. 3. Read the OT with regard to the extreme separatist standards of Israel, in their fleshly, spiritual, and racial bigotry towards any nation outside their own.

Tim, my "system" is founded and based on comparing Scripture with Scripture and like the Scriptures, it is not hard to understand, it's hard to believe.

Grace and peace brother

Tony

Honestly, I was taught to be a classical Dispo, but it wasn't til I did the study myself that I owned it. So I like to think that it was through my own research that I came to my views.

I am not sure where all that is coming from in the last post. I am trying to stay focused on one topic - the Church as a mystery. You keep going very broad. We can discuss the other things later, but I just want you to delve into this issue a bit first.

Come back to Eph. 3. In fact, the entire book of Eph. Nowhere is the Church said to be a mystery. In fact, what we see is that the Church contains mystery elements - i.e. Jew/Gent in one body & the Church's relationship w/ Jesus as the espoused Bride (chpt 5). Not one passage specifically gives a "but now" to the Church specifically. The statements made are to various aspects of the Church. Now if you want to infer that the 4 main mystery aspects of the Church make the Church a mystyery, then ok. But just know that your terminology should reflect that.

Here is a short article I wrote on this issue: http://debatingtheologicalissues.blo...of-church.html