There have been times when, though very doctrinally persuaded and greatly rejoicing that Jesus has once and forever fulfilled all the law on our behalf, I seemed yet to have the greatest battle to fully and quietly rest in that unspeakably precious confidence. It just eluded me as to present comfort.

Though very precious in concept, it just didn’t seem to get through the veil of my flesh to fill me with the comfort and assurance of glory that it should have. This lack of ability to more fully apprehend this great truth of the finished work to my immediate comfort mystified and troubled me very greatly. I needed this well beloved truth to be quickened afresh and made alive in my spirit. Here’s what I think happens:

Once the awakened conscience of the unbeliever, or the sin stricken conscience of the believer has been persuaded of God’s love for the trembling sinner (whom the Spirit by the quickened Word has brought to the place of trembling), it is just here that the accuser’s greatest, most masterful art-form comes into play.

He accuses the trembling believer of unbelief. “Well”, says he, “all of this might be pardoned if you only had faith … Where now is that faith that receives the help and power of God?”

Or he will even use scripture to ask, “How can a double minded person like you receive anything from the Lord?”, and many other such slanderous attempts to send us into a hell of terror and despair in the hour of temptation, or the urgency of deepest desperate need, as in a sudden hour when death or danger is most immediately threatening.

This is not the place to look to the false comforters of easy believism, or the legalism of most of modern evangelicalism that teaches that faith comes easily at the behest of the will. Rather, it is the place we look for the testimonies of the saints who also have passed through such deep waters in their pilgrimage.

It is there we find David in the Psalms, the man after God’s own heart, giving poetic expression to trials and fiercely brutal questionings that describe the deepest depths of destitution, almost despairing of even the ability to ever again trust and hope in God.

The Psalms remind us that with the God who always faithfully “hears the prayer of the destitute” (Ps 102:17), there’s always a way when there seems to be no way.

Just when Satan has all but convinced us that because of our sinful, shameful condition, there is no help in God, it is just there, at the “end of strength”, at the end of “confidence in the flesh” (our works, prayers, or sacrifices), this is the place He will bring His elect. He plans the circumstance to bring us to this place, because it is here, though most painful for the moment, that He has ordained His greatest demonstration of resurrection mercy. And oh, what glory breaks upon the heart of the desolate believer, able now again to believe and rejoice in the sure and certain “hope of glory”.

There, at the end of strength, even the strength to trust fully, that’s where comfort, peace, and hope comes flooding in, NOT by a faith that we can somehow manage to muster, but by a grace that He freely gives to the destitute, those who simply cling to the promise that if they ask for bread, they will not receive a stone in return.

Satan’s lie, intended to cast us into despair, becomes the wisdom of God for our good. It becomes the occasion for promotion in grace to be more and more conformed to His image (Ro 8:28-29). The accuser’s terrorism of the conscience is thwarted, not because of the strength of a faith that we vainly imagine to be within our reach and power, but by the grace of Him who ever lives to make intercession for us that our faith not fail, even when our faith seems most removed from our experience because of the intensity of the assault.

It is as when a cloud may pass in front of the sun. This may block the light and warmth momentarily but can do nothing to change the sun’s unchanging fixity. So it is with the God who keeps covenant by upholding a faith of which He alone is both author and finisher (Heb 12:2).

Did He ever give us faith? Then He does not retract what He has pledged in the everlasting covenant to keep to the end, whether our circumstance will let us feel the immediate comfort of this or not.

Nevertheless the foundation of God stands sure, having this seal, The Lord knows them that are His..: 2 Timothy 2:19

Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: Philippians 1:6

The One who holds us, must hold our faith and faithfully renew it by His continual intercession He ever lives to make, else it would most surely fail. The faith that first quickened life must at times be revived in our experience if we are to know the security of His peace in the storms that we all must face. This peace is not only our peace with God. It is more than the peace that God gives. It is the very peace “of God”. That is to say, the peace that belongs to God.

After He has rebuked and chastened those upon whom He has set His eternal, electing love, He will restore faith to the place of its settled rest in Christ alone, as His peace, even the “joy of the Lord” (Jn 15:11; 17:13) returns to the full strength of its brightness, all clouds dispelled.

Joy returns in the morning, as faith and settled trust returns, reminding us that we were never in control of that most precious gift in the first place. It is not our faith that holds Him faithful; it is His mercy that holds even our faith when we cannot feel anything but the unbelief and doubt that we abhor, that breaks our hearts and then terrorizes our conscience with all the thunder claps of Sinai.

As a regenerate man, David went through such billows of uncertainty and terror stricken fears, just as Peter would have sank beneath the waves if not for the outstretched hand of the Lord. Thankfully, Peter wasn’t left to the strength of his sinking faith, not then, and not later at the denial when his faith did not fail, only because of Jesus who ever lives to pray for His elect in a way that He does not pray for the world (Jn 17:9; Heb 7:25).

So was it Peter’s faith that saved him when sinking beneath the waves? The only hint of faith he had was the grace to know where his help comes from. It was only enough faith to cry out for the outstretched hand of mercy that always invariably hears one prayer in particular. That is “the prayer of the destitute”.

He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer. Psalms 102:17

When unbelief is hated as an unwelcome invader, God will not impute this deadly sin to the struggling, desperately willing heart of a believer struggling and longing to believe. It is only the unbelief, comfortably embraced by the indifferent, boldly defiant sinner, or the proudly self righteous that will be condemned, NOT the poor afflicted Christian who wants with all their heart to believe and trust, with all the simplicity of a completely dependent child who has nothing to offer but need.

If we believe not, YET He abides faithful: He cannot deny himself. 2 Timothy 2:13

In deep waters, He gives faith to the faint to lift them above the waves. There have been times when I have nearly despaired if I would ever again return to feel again the sweet consolations of faith and peace. But just there, in that state of near despair, that’s when the Sun of righteousness would rise with healing in His wings.

How precious does the grace to believe appear, the hour we are enabled again to believe and trust and be at rest.

“Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus. Oh for grace to trust Him more.”

There is nothing on this earth to compare to the joy that comes to a heart that was so near, if not altogether despaired of the ability to truly, savingly believe God with the faith that pleases God, and so be supernaturally enabled to see light and life in the face of Jesus in what the writer of Hebrews calls, “the full assurance of faith”.

That sweet return of faith, peace, and hope, after the storm, makes the pain of the fire to be un-regretted. Moreover, the love that fills the heart after chastisement begins to conquer the dread of the fire that love must of necessity (“if need be”) bring again in order to separate the gold from the dross.

Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ… 1 Peter 1:6-7

But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, AFTER that ye have suffered ‘a while’, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. 1 Peter 5:10

This is why James can say:

My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into different kinds of temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. James 1:2-4

I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire … That’s because Jesus knows there’s no other place that the gold can be acquired except there, in the fire. Revelation 3:18

For whom the LORD loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives. Hebrews 12:6

Chastening and trials of various kinds are a sign of the electing love of God. It is how He keeps us and makes us more fruitful.

I pray even now that you already have, and will continue to always receive His comfort and help through every trial of your faith, which is really just the resilience of His faith working in you to keep you through Jesus’ never ending, unfailing intercession for His elect.

For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Philippians 2:13

The faith that saves is not generated ‘by’ us. It is not the cause but the fruit of His regenerating work ‘in’ us. It is the quickening work of the Spirit enabling us to believe at the end of all self reliance, even to trust and believe.

Must we not believe, repent, and obey the gospel? Certainly we must, but none of this will be savingly accomplished by any strength or power of our own, but by His Spirit ALONE.

Lastly, you can see I have copied a few trusted brothers and Marlene whom you know. I seriously invite them to check me for any theological errors, or anything that might have been made clearer along these lines.

I also trust them for anything they may feel to add for your encouragement. I don’t want to say anything that might be in any way misleading or needlessly troublesome to one of His precious sheep, but this has been my perception that has calmed my fears and eased doubts amidst sudden storms of deepest testing. So I submit this account of my own experience and personal application of the Word for the body’s judgment and/or helpful input.

Test all things; hold fast what is good. 1 Thessalonians 5:21

In His tender covenant mercies, Reggie

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Yes, I believe and affirm that God preserves an ethnic distinction from among the natural branches precisely in order to demonstrate and set on public display His covenant word to Israel for the vindication of His sovereignty in divine election, and for the instruction of the nations and the fallen order of principalities and powers through what He has purposed to show through them. A preserved remnant from among the natural branches will indeed be born in a day (Isa 66:8; Zech 3:9) and gathered from all nations, never to be invaded again. That is sure and certain! Until then, they are made sufficiently distinguishable as a distinct ethnic race precisely in order to show in them the discipline of the covenant and to test the hearts of all nations concerning this blinded people who, though momentarily enemies of the gospel, are NONETHELESS BELOVED, and are to be so regarded, to the chagrin of those nations who have laid malicious, unfeeling hands on God’s afflicted in their pitiable ghetto condition, a presumption that will be much required in that day.

But this Pauline insistence that the covenant cannot be fulfilled in its complete scope apart from their return is a vast remove from the presumption that the salvation of Christ is somehow mysteriously operating among the nations on the principle of some hidden DNA. Interesting, is it not? That such a genetic connection is conveniently hidden under the radar of a Hitler? Do we put confidence in a genetic connection that is so hidden as to escape the costly identification with the nation that is marked off by a special divine discipline that has pursued the Jewish people across the millennia, that was to be a public instruction to all the other nations? (Amos 3:2). No, to find the Israel that is set apart for both a discipline of ultimate astonishment and an age concluding salvation, in order to trace the people of that well foretold history, one must follow the trail of tears and blood! That’s where you’ll find the people of the double curse who are destined for the double glory on a restored millennial earth!

A uniquely severe covenant curse attaches to this people of the high, but failed calling, as history has so conspicuously witnessed in its unrelieved, ever repeated cycles of judgement and persecution that must continue to the day of the Lord. This supposed hidden DNA, on the other hand, is able to conveniently escape the peculiar corporate suffering that has been the long witness of a continual divine pursuit that does not end till ‘that day’, the day of the Lord.

Due to its obscurity, this genetic connection is also able to escape Satan’s persecuting attentions. Shall we believe that it has only now been discovered, just in time to distinguish itself by its beliefs and its teachers for such a time as this? I don’t think so! It all smacks of pride to even look, or need to look, for some distinction that is other (for how could it be more?) of the inheritance of all things that is secured to even ‘the least of these’ who put simple faith and trust in Christ, and worship God in the Spirit with no confidence in the flesh.

What person from any nation could possibly profit by being distinguished as a descendant from one of the tribes that were taken into captivity by Assyria in the 8th century B.C.? Who needs it? According to Paul in many places, such a thing would count for nothing (Gal 6:15). It is pride to even investigate the evidence one way or the other. Even if it were true, it’s the last thing the flesh could need. All such vanity should rather be fled than pursued.

Therefore, in all simplicity, the only requirement, which is no small requirement, is that one be born again. This requires no prior virtue, since there isn’t any acceptable virtue outside of Christ, and nor any advantage through physical descent, except as God has determined before the world began to bring certain ones to faith. For that very cause, and to give His election a visible outward form for the sake of instruction, Israel exists in a visible way as an unbelieving nation precisely to make that demonstration through them, not on the basis of works but of Him who calls (Ro 9:11).

As also their special discipline is a reminder that whether in faith or unbelief, the covenant of both requirement and promise remains with them, as they show through their history the fearful truth of Jesus’ dictum that to whom much has been given (privilege, gift, stewardship), much more is required.

Obviously, or what should be obvious, regardless of belonging to a called and set apart nation, there is no personal benefit of the blessing of the covenant, or the inheritance of the New Covenant unless one is born again. Instead, there is only the special liability and exposure to covenant wrath if a Jew is NOT born again. I don’t see this special discipline on gentiles in general, as I would certainly expect if they belonged to the elect seed of either of the houses of Israel.

It is impossible to be “in Christ” and not also be “in Israel”. That’s why it is only in Him, the One seed, that the promises are yea and amen, nowhere else. This is only remedied through the new birth, nothing else. I see the church as ‘the Israel within Israel’ in continuity with the remnant according to the election of grace and the elect of all ages. To be newly revealed does not mean that the church is newly existent. The body of Christ exists wheresoever the Spirit indwells a believer, as it was nothing less than “the Spirit of Christ” who was “IN” the saints and prophets of old (1Pet 1:11). As Jesus would reprimand Nicodemus for his failure as a teacher to recognize that it is only by the Spirit that the nation will one day be born in a day in order to inherit the kingdom of God, how then could it be any different for the individual? So the new birth and the indwelling of the Spirit is not new, though its eternal basis in the blood of the everlasting covenant has come more fully to light in Christ.

In short, it is the new birth that holds together the whole redemptive drama. The physical-visible side of the promises only serve to underscore its necessity. The promise is not made on the basis of any virtue or natural advantage where the physical descendants of Abraham are concerned, obviously, and that’s precisely the point. Israel exists to destroy all boasting, simply because Israel exists (as a set apart, visible, corporate entity) to show the sovereignty of God’s electing grace in a people prone always to wander and slide back from the high standard that cannot be met except by the Spirit of Christ, who is only given on the basis of the holy exchange and imputation, which had its operation through the Spirit even before the mystery of how this would be accomplished, and its eternal basis in the blood of Christ would be revealed.

Since the revelation of the mystery of the gospel, there has been a notable change in the stewardship of responsibility, and this recognition of dispensational change does not make one a dispensationalist, of course, but all schools of thought, if they are Christian, will necessarily recognize a dispensational distinction of some kind. Since the revelation of the mystery, identification with Israel is no more through circumcision or any other such thing. That is why the gentile believer has been loosed from these things. “For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law” (Heb 7:12). If this were not so, the freedoms that the Jerusalem council pronounced for gentile believers would have been a breach, not merely of Jewish custom, but the stewardship of responsibility enjoined on everyone living under that dispensation.

The identification is in the Spirit of Christ. That is why one born of the Spirit should be more burdened and touched with what touches Israel, even in its unbelief, than even the natural Jew or home born Israeli. Israel is not be made jealous because we keep all the laws they do, but because, quite conspicuously apart from Kosher observance and the works of the law, the light and love of Israel shines through believing gentile faces towards all men, but most appropriately to the Jew first. This is God’s leverage to reason with His disobedient but no less elect people that the promised Spirit is received not through the law but through faith.

We must not rob God of this very leverage of demonstration by seeking to accommodate ourselves to any human presumption that suggests that Christ is not sufficient, or that His / the Spirit’s work depends on anything in man or that man can do. This is the upshot of NT revelation as I understand it: The only thing that God can accept is what He does in us and through us by His Spirit (Gal 6:15), not as a means unto but as the sure results of an already secured salvation, even the salvation of the everlasting covenant promised to Israel and received by whosoever will in Christ.

Again, to be in Christ is to be in Israel. No outward forms are its proof but the new heart, which, of course, will show itself in love and good works. Hence, you need not become anything other than a Christian in order to receive all things and full identification with Israel, and not the Israel of God only, but also the Israel that is in pain to be delivered for whom we travel till Christ be formed in them, since it is only in them, as a distinct ethnic race in the earth, that the covenant of grace will be finally and openly vindicated in the sight of all nations.

This is the clear teaching of the NT. We tend to complicate it: In Him are all things and He is the head and we are complete in Him. It’s that simple. To be in Christ is, in a sense, to be ‘already there’ seated with Him in heaven, being already delivered from this ‘present age’ (Gal 1:4), enjoying even now the first-fruits of the kingdom and foretaste of the “powers of the age to come” (Heb 6:5).

What I’d really like to talk about, and what I’m writing about occasionally, is the glories of the everlasting covenant that Christ has made sure to every believer now, as He will to ‘all Israel’ in that day. When we’re in Him, its a sealed deal. When we’re in Him, we’re automatically in both houses! We don’t need to sweat which house we belong to. We’re in His house forever! Where else is there?

I close with this admonition and warning to us all, which I suspect may be most especially applicable in these discussions:

“But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Chris (2Cor 11:3).

In brotherly love, Reggie

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It is hard to overstate how far this runs against the a biblical theology of the Holy Spirit and the doctrine of regeneration, as it pertains to both testaments, but this is nonetheless a key component of the system. But many, even in their own camp, are often not aware of this, and have not thought through why this view is an essential pillar of pre-tribulational dispensationalism.

But if tribulation saints are not indwelt by the Spirit, what of the truth of the believer’s adoption and union with Christ, as common partakers of the divine nature? How does one sustain union with the divine nature if this is not internal? How is one who is born of the Spirit not also indwelt by the Spirit? What happens to the New Covenant promise of a new spirit and new heart? What of the new creation that the believer becomes through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit?

Is not the Spirit that came at Pentecost the same that was promised all throughout the prophets? And will this promise not have a yet further fulfillment when the penitent survivors of Israel will receive the Spirit in the yet coming Day of the Lord? Are we to believe that the blessing of Pentecost and the New Covenant will be different, or something inferior for tribulation saints and the Jews who come into the blessings of the New Covenant at Jesus’ return? And what of the saved of the nations throughout the millennium? Will they NOT be indwelt by the Holy Spirit and therefore NOT qualify as members of Christ’s body?

John F. Walvoord and other pre-trib defenders speak of a “reversal of Pentecost”. Does this not imply a ‘retraction’ of the blessing of Pentecost? How would that notion suit Pentecostals? Yet many of them embrace the pre-trib rapture of the bride whom they distinguish form the saints of the tribulation. But how can there be a reversal of Pentecost without the equally impossible notion of a reversal of the New Covenant? Since the gift of the Spirit’s indwelling belongs to the blessing of the New Covenant secured in the Redeemer’s blood, how can this be reversed in the case of believers who come to faith during the tribulation and beyond?

Since the Spirit was (in some sense) “not yet given” until Christ was glorified (Jn 7:39), it is no more possible for a reversal of Pentecost than the reversal of the basis on which He would now be given. Now that Jesus has been glorified, the Spirit has also been ‘forever given’ in the full light of the revelation of that once and for all event. The relation of these two realities, the glorification of Jesus and the gift of the Spirit, are inseparable, not only throughout this age, but no less the millennial age to come. Yet dispensationalists would have us believe that tribulation saints will not be indwelt. Why not? Simply because this would make them members of the body of Christ based on such scriptures as 1Cor 6:17; 12:13; Eph 2:17; 4:4, etc.

In its original context, the eschatological promise of the Spirit was to the penitent survivors of Israel at the post-tribulational Day of the Lord (Isa 32:15; 59:21; Eze 11:19; 36:26-27; 37:14; 39:29; Joel 2:29-32; Zech 12:10-13:1). With the glorification of Jesus, the “promise of the Father” has come as first fruits in unexpected advance of “that day”, but this does nothing to cancel or change its original application and fulfillment in the still future DOL. Now that the New Covenant has been sealed in the Savior’s blood, how can it be thought that those who receive the promise in that coming day will receive something inferior to what the church received at Pentecost in first-fruits fulfillment of that very promise?

What is it then about God’s beloved saints enduring the persecution of the Antichrist that deprives them of the advantage of the Spirit’s indwelling? Shall post-tribulational Israel receive something inferior in the day of their national repentance than the fledgling community of Jesus confessors received at Pentecost on the very basis of that very promise? This is a question pre-tribulationists ought to reconsider, since they hold with us that the penitent Jewish survivors of Jacob’s trouble will indeed receive the promise of the Spirit at that time.

To rephrase the question: will those who receive the promise of the Spirit in its original, post-tribulational context, receive something less (“with” but not “in”) than the body of Christ received at Pentecost? Yet if the receive the Pentecostal blessing of the Spirit’s indwelling that the church of this age receives, how will they not be members of Christ’s body, particularly now that Jesus has been glorified? Why would tribulation saints not also be baptized by the one Spirit into the one body now that Jesus has been glorified?

I don’t think most pre-tribulationists have thought this through, or really seriously faced the implications of their unique view of the church that depends entirely on some very erroneous notions of the Spirit’s indwelling, as limited only to a presumed mystery church age. Now that Jesus has been once and for all glorified, there is no returning to an inferior, pre-Pentecost relationship of only ‘with’ but not ‘in’. Why would there be? Such an inference would not exist were it not for its essential expedience to support a view of the church that did not exit before Darby. The reason is clear.

Dispensationalism’s defense of the doctrine of imminence depends entirely on their defense of an ecclesiology that keeps the church out of the tribulation and no less out of the millennium. This is because of their view that the church is a mystery organism, belonging strictly to this present mystery dispensation, unforeseen and unforetold in the prophets. All the saved before Pentecost and those saved after the pre-tribulation rapture cannot belong to the ‘mystery body of Christ’. They belong instead to God’s program for Israel and the nations. So those who believe on Jesus after the rapture cannot, on this view, be reckoned as belonging to the body of Christ.

Dispensationalism depends on a view of the Pauline mystery that must be regarded as completely separate and distinct from the “mystery of the gospel and of Christ” (Eph 6:19), which is admittedly foretold in the OT scriptures. It is not only God’s eternal purpose to incorporate gentiles into equal standing in one body that was hid in other ages (Eph 3:6), but the mystery of the gospel itself (Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11-12), and this mystery was certainly fully foretold in the “scriptures of the prophets”. So already the idea that a mystery can have nothing to do with what was foretold in prophecy breaks down. To support, then, the idea of the church as a mystery organism, separate and distinct from all other saints in the OT, the tribulation, or the millennium, dispensationalism must conceive of the church, not only as a new revelation, but an entirely new entity, separate and distinct from all who will be saved in the tribulation and beyond.

It is one thing to “distinguish” between the church as the regenerate people of God and “Israel after the flesh”, elect and predestined, but not yet in Christ, but to posit a separation between the regenerate saints of the present time from all who are no less born again in the tribulation and beyond, is opposed to the Bible’s own definition of the nature of regeneration, and what constitutes believers as the body of Christ by reason of living union through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Dispensationalism’s unique understanding of the Pauline mystery is foundational to the system introduced by Darby. Certainly the church was not, and could not be revealed as the body of Christ until the gospel was revealed, but does this mean that the church, in its essential nature, as joined to God by the Spirit, had no prior existence? (1Cor 6:17). Here is a principle too little considered: For something to be newly revealed, or come more fully to light, does not necessarily mean it has had no prior existence.

This is a very neglected consideration. We see this with the gospel, with Christ, and particularly His two comings, which were certainly foretold, but not understood until the gospel was publicly revealed with the Spirit’s descent at Pentecost (compare Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11=12). This was entirely new to the understanding, but not new to what could be shown to have been fully foretold in the writings of the prophets. Yet Paul calls this fully foretold gospel a mystery that was kept secret in other ages (Acts 26:22-23; Rom 16:25-26; Eph 6:19).

For the dispensational view of the mystery to stand, it must be distanced from anything foretold in the OT, and nothing of OT prophecy can intermingle with this ‘mystery age’ that the church is assumed to occupy, as extending only from Pentecost to the rapture. The tribulation belongs to another dispensation entirely.

Why do dispensationalists find it necessary to assume this? It is because there can be no compromise of imminence. If the abiding possibility of the rapture is not to be put off beyond any intervening events foretold in OT prophecy, then for imminence to stand as an abiding, ever present possibility, no foretold event can exist in OT prophecy that must be fulfilled before the 70th week begins. All outstanding and un-fulfilled OT prophecy can only be seen on the other side of the rapture, fully contained in Daniel’ 70th week. Otherwise, if it can be shown that there are prophecies in the OT that could only be fulfilled in the long age between the advents, then, of course, imminence becomes impossible.

But a careful study and comparison of parallels of Paul’s use of the term, mystery, or secret will not permit this kind of complete dissociation from the mystery contained in the OT scriptures. Yes, there are discrete and distinct mysteries, not all of which were specifically foretold in the prophets, but these could only come to light by the revelation of the gospel (Ro 16:25-26).

Certainly the mystery of Christ and the church could not be understood as it is now, but since the revelation of the mystery of the gospel, the means by which God would accomplish His eternal purpose to bring all things together into one could now be made be made known (Eph 1:9; 3:5-6), not only to the church but to the principalities and powers (Eph 3:10). The mystery revealed to Paul was that through the instrumentality of the gospel (“by the gospel”), as a secret now revealed, God would fulfill His original promise to bless all nations through Abraham’s Seed, only this would accomplish something far more grand than anything that could have been conceived before. Not only would the nations be blessed, they would become fellow equals in the inheritance of the saints in the one, regenerate people of God, revealed now as the body of Christ, God’s one new man (regenerate man).

This is NOT something that is temporary, as in dispensationalism, but continues to be the revelation of everyone who believes on Christ until the final perfection of new heavens and earth. Granted, this discrete mystery revealed to Paul was not specifically spelled out anywhere in the writings of the prophets, but it is bound to the larger revelation of the gospel that is its basis. Therefore, in Paul’s mind, the mystery of the church is a piece with the mystery of the gospel.

Notably, one aspect that shows the relationship of the mystery to OT prophecy is its wonderful capacity for verifying the truth claims of the gospel by solving the puzzle of prophecy (1Pet 1:11-12). The agreement of the revealed mystery with all that stood written in the prophets was regarded as the gospel’s greatest evidence of proof (Acts 26:22-23). Yet, this evidence, so compelling in retrospect, was purposely hidden, not only from the pride of man, but necessarily from the righteous too, until the time appointed.

This is so that the mystery would remain hidden, even from the rulers of the darkness of this age, so that they would not know the ‘hidden wisdom’ until it was too late (1Cor 2:7-8; Rom 16:25-26). It was a divinely set trap (Isa 8:14-17 with 1Cor 2:7-8). So Paul’s view of mystery is not disconnected from Jesus’ teaching on the “mystery of the kingdom”, as the new form the kingdom would take throughout an unexpected, inter-advent period.

This idea of a mystery, closed up and sealed among the Lord’s disciples, has its background in the OT’s view of the sealed vision (Isa 8:14-17; 29:11; Dan 9:24; 12:4, 9; Hab 2:2-3). It is this that make the Messiah to be a stone of stumbling in His appointed time, but that’s another whole study in its own right, but very relevant to how we would see Paul’s use of the concept of the revelation of concealed secrets in contrast to dispensationalism’s interest to divide between two, regenerate peoples of God in order to keep the church out of the tribulation.

But suppose the concession is made, (as some non-dispensationalist also believe), that the church (as now defined) did not exist in any form before Pentecost. What then? Surely this is no proof that the church does not appear on earth again after the rapture, and that believers who come to faith during the tribulation and beyond are any the less to be reckoned as members of Christ’s body. This would be to suggest that a once and for all revelation could somehow recede back to something inferior, according to the dispensationalists’s reading of Jn 7:39 with Jn 14:17.

So in order preserve the doctrine of imminence, the church must be raptured before any of the signs of the 70th week can begin, obviously. Therefore, to make the church of this present, “mystery age”, exempt from the tribulation, something must explain the presence of saints in the tribulation, as seen so clearly all throughout the book of Revelation. Here is where dispensationalists turn to texts on the Holy Spirit to support the concept that only believers of this age can belong to the body of Christ, because only believers of this age have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

To uphold the system, they must define the church out of the tribulation, ‘at all costs’. Identify tribulation believers as members of Christ’s body and all is lost, case closed. That would put the church in the tribulation. That’s the logic. Thus the invention of a new, and unprecedented doctrine of the church that denies to the faithful of the tribulation identity as members of Christ’s body. We may find traces of the doctrine of imminence in church history, most often on the presumption that the Antichrist is present, but never this. This is new, original with Darby.

Like tribulation saints, millennial believers are also believed to sustain a pre-Pentecostal relationship to the Spirit, “with” but not “in”. Fantastical, I know, but this is some of the ugly underbelly that is taught in the seminaries in the interest defending the indefensible. Unhappily, much of this never reaches the people in the pew. They get just enough to be inoculated from a fair hearing of an alternative, mediating view, and never learn what academic pre-tribulationists know very well to be necessary to sustain the system. As for example, what would the average pre-tribulationist think if they knew what the academics at the seminary know, that for the system to work, Job, Isaiah, Daniel, and all the saints of the OT must remain in the dust of the earth for another seven years after the rapture, while the church is in heaven celebrating the marriage of the Lamb?

By defining the church out of the tribulation period, not only is the church protected from wrath (as though tribulation saints and Jews fed and preserved in the wilderness will NOT be protected from divine wrath, not to mention the surviving gentiles who facilitate Jewish return after the tribulation is over), but by removing the church from earth before the onset of Daniel’s 70th week, the doctrine of imminence is safeguarded, because all of the signs that definitely signal the Lord’s return belong to the 70th week, safely on the other side of the rapture. So nothing needs to happen that might signal Jesus’ return to rapture the church, since the signs belong to the 70th week.

The problem with this is view of imminence is the necessary reconstitution of Israel as a viable nation populated by Jews, with Jerusalem at its center (see Dan 12:1; Eze 38:8; Zech 12:2-3 et al). This is a comparatively recent development that did not exist for centuries!

Think about it: For nearly 17 centuries, the Jews were almost everywhere else but in their own Land. The Land was to lie waste and desolate, not for one, but for “many generations” (Isa 61:4). Not only this, but the temple that the last aggressor will “tread down, burn, and lay waste” is very significantly one that has been only recently recovered to Jewish possession (“possessed it but a little while”; Isa 63:18; 64:10-11). The context is clearly the final desolation of Jerusalem and the Jews’ final deliverance at the DOL. No other assault, whether Babylon, Greece, or Rome has burned a temple that the Jews had possessed only a “little while”.

Either this language is merely a metaphorical of a ‘seemingly’ short time, or it is literal, and necessarily future. The point is this: No other period has answered to the “many generations” of desolation as referred to in Isa 61:4. The Babylonian captivity was a single generation, 70 years. Only the long Diaspora that followed the Roman destruction can answer to these details. So how could Jesus return at any moment since Paul allegedly introduced the mystery of the pre-trib rapture sometime before his first letter to the Corinthians? And what was the “blessed hope” of believers living between Pentecost and Paul’s supposed new revelation? May I suggest it must have been the hope that Jesus gave to every believer drawn by the Spirit, namely, resurrection at the “last day” (Jn 6:39, 44; 11:24).

How possible then was an imminent return when there was no Jewish nation in existence to strike an agreement with the Antichrist? It is one thing to teach an any moment coming when the temple was still standing, and Daniel’s 70th week might begin without obstacle. It might seem possible again to teach an imminent return before the tribulation after the modern repatriation of the Land, but HOW can pre-tribulationists consider a pre-tribulational return a viable possibility for the 17 centuries during which the Jewish people were everywhere but in the Land? Where would be the “many generations” of desolation, not to mention many other details of the foretold Jewish experience all throughout the long Diaspora that began with the Roman expulsion?

But I digress; back to the issue of the Spirit. So we see Dispensationalism’s ‘interest’ to find anything that might seem to support their distinction between the saints of this, so-called “church age” (a term so completely assumed you would almost think it exists in scripture). They believe they find justification to distinguish so-called “church saints” from so-called, “tribulation saints” by their understanding of Holy Spirit’s relation to the body of Christ as unique to believers of this mystery church age.

They argue, and who will not agree?, that the Spirit was in some sense “not yet given”, because Jesus was “not yet glorified” (Jn 7:39). They further point out that Jesus speaks of the Spirit who is now “with” the disciples but “will be” (future tense) “in” them (Jn 14:17). Dispensationalists make much of this to argue that before Pentecost the Spirit was only “with” OT believers. He was not “in” them. When it is pointed out that many of the OT saints were indwelt by the Spirit of Christ, with Peter affirming the same in the NT (1Pet 1:11), the response is, “yes, but the Spirt did not indwell them PERMANENTLY”. Well, they were either born again or they weren’t, and how else do the dead live and sustain a living relationship with the living God? (Mt 22:32). We can see from Jesus’ remarks to Nicodemus that He did not regard the new birth as something new or future, but a present necessity to discern the things of the Spirit, as Paul would also so clearly affirm (1Cor 2:14). In the OT, the children of the flesh persecuted the children of the Spirit, even as now (Gal 4:29), and so on we could multiply examples.

But perhaps the most exegetically unsupportable ‘reach’, illustrating how one unproven inference demands another, is when pre-tribulationists advance the notion that not only “assumes” that the Holy Spirit is the un-identified personal restrainer of 2Thes 2:7, but that it is the church that must be removed before the man of sin can be revealed. It is one thing to say the Holy Spirit is the one who is holding back the revelation of the man of sin (itself a mere inference); it is quite something else to say it is particularly His indwelling of the church that requires that the church be removed. How is this arrived at?

Pre-tribulationists do NOT want to say that the Holy Spirit is removed entirely from the earth. They know that no one could be born again after the rapture except by the Spirit, of course. Therefore they reason that it is particularly the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence in the believers (of this age) that is removed. Thus, the church is removed. And, as we have shown, since the church as the body of Christ is defined by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, they reason that those who come to faith during the tribulation cannot be the body of Christ. Well, there it is. This is what they teach, and must teach in order to keep the church out of the tribulation, in order to maintain the any moment return to terminate the mystery body’s limited tenure on this earth.

It is a shameful grabbing at straws, and like all wood, hay, and straw, it will go up in smoke not many days hence, but at what cost? The prophetic people of God must not only identify error, they must ask why it has come, particularly just now? What does it threaten? What will it cost in the day when it will be required?

Before ending this, I can anticipate that many will want to ask in what sense was the Spirit “not yet given” in Jn 7:39? I may not know the right or complete answer, but I’m sure enough of a few things it cannot mean. It cannot mean that no one was ever indwelt by the Spirit before Pentecost. That would be a contradiction of a host of scriptures bearing upon the nature of vital regeneration and flatly contradict 1Pet 1:11 that says that the Spirit of Christ was “in” the prophets. When this is pointed out, it is ‘desperately’ argued that He ONLY in-dwelt the prophets, or worse, that He did not PERMANENTLY indwell them.

While the Spirit certainly came in a much fuller, ‘corporate’ measure, with signs following, there were signs before Pentecost. So in what way did He come that was wholly new? I can only suggest, but one thing that was truly new and without precedent. It is the Spirit’s descent upon the whole of the church. All that were being daily added to the church received the ‘coming upon’, ‘falling upon’ of the Spirit’s power and anointing. This fulfilled Moses’ desire that the prophetic anointing would come upon all the people (Num 11:29).

The special empowerment of the Spirit was no longer selective, as in the OT, but came upon all, not only in gifts and signs, but perhaps the best answer is that now, the Spirit would come as the Spirit of revelation, opening to clear view the mystery that many prophets and righteous, even angels desired to look into (Mt 13:17; 1Pet 1:12). The full glory of the revealed mystery could only break on the disciples’s understanding AFTER Jesus was glorified, and now the gospel could be proclaimed to the whole world. This is just the point of Pentecost. This is at least one sense in which the Spirit came in power that is not too much considered in studies and discussions of what changed at Pentecost.

I suspect that the phenomenon of revelation and the deep piercing of the heart, all in conjunction with the appointed time, is what sets Pentecost apart, as it set in motion the church’s mission to the nations. That’s perhaps part of the explanation of what unique, new sense the Spirit had not yet been given.

As for Jn 14:17, I suggest that far too much has been concluded beyond its simple intent. It is typically taken to mean that the Spirit who is “with” the disciples would come at some future time to be “in” them. I don’t think that’s the point, though, of course, it could be so argued, provided this was the only text to use this language, and provided that such a conclusion didn’t conflict with other clear texts bearing upon the question. But I invite us us to look at another text in John’s second epistle where the same language is used.

“For the truth’s sake, which dwells ‘in’ us, and shall be ‘with’; us forever” (2Jn 2). Observe that here we have an inversion of the same expression, “with”, and “shall be in”. Who would want to suggest that the truth, which now dwells “in us” will change His relation to an inferior position of only “dwelling WITH us” sometime in the future? I submit that this is simply what is called a ‘synonymous parallelism’, intended only to stress the abiding nature of the Spirit’s, or in this case, the truth’s relation to the believer, and not a change of position or relationship.

In my view, the disciples would hear this comfort from Jesus, not as a change of location, but an assurance that the One currently with them, would come to them in the person of ‘another Comforter’ and remain ‘in’ them forever, not that they were currently un-born again, or un-indwelt by the Spirit. Jesus had pronounced them all “clean”, except Judas (Jn 13:10), and this could never be said apart from the regenerating work of the Spirit that implies the indwelling of the divine nature, which Peter will make the equivalent of being ‘born again by the Word’, something that we may be sure distinguished the living from the dead, not only in the NT but no less in the OT (1Pet 1:23). Being born of the Word of God, as being partaker of the divine nature by the Spirit’s indwelling, is certainly NOT limited to NT believers, as a number of scriptures, and many necessary inferences can be produced to show. .

But again, even if it were granted that the Holy Spirit indwells believers in this age in some unique, unprecedented way, this would not mean that He will do less for tribulation saints, particularly since His indwelling is based on the once and for all glorification of Jesus. Conclusion: Tribulation saints, and all who come to faith throughout the millennium will be no less the body of Christ on earth than those who have the Spirit now.

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To my mind, the church, as I see the term used in the New Testament, means a local assembly under a local government of elders under the headship of Christ, independent but in a relationship of serving and sharing between sister congregations. This cannot be said of the nation in its unbelief, hence the obvious distinction. The body has its own autonomous government, and is not ‘under’ the authority of the religious leadership of the nation, except, of course, to honor all authority, both civil and religious, as scripturally appropriate.

For my view of the relation of the church to Israel, I see the regenerate believer in Christ as necessarily “in Israel,” since it seems to me a theological axiom that one cannot be ‘in Christ’ and not also be ‘in Israel’. To be ‘in Christ’ is to be ‘in Israel’ and heirs with all the saints of the commonwealth of Israel’s unique covenant status and everlasting election. The election is with no other nation! The claim of Christ’s body to be the election of Israel is because they are in the elect One who is quintessential Israel (Isa 49:3-4). To be in Him is to be in Israel. It is to belong most particularly to that living remnant that exists within the prodigal and spiritually dead nation that is awaiting the appointed day of birth and resurrection, as best compared to the sovereign arrest of Saul on the road to Damascus (Gal 1:15-16 with Ps 102:13).

Paul says, “we are the circumcision” and he was writing to Gentiles. He speaks of the “Israel of God” in Gal 6:16, though some will insist that he is only speaking this way of regenerate Jews in distinction from those who are not (Ro 9:6). But I am of the view that Paul is applying this term to believing gentiles in Christ. In Ro 2, Paul most apparently applies the term, ‘Jew’, to faithful gentiles who show the works of the law in their hearts apart from the law as written code. But here too, some will say that Paul means only to distinguish between Jews who are true to the covenant by regeneration from those who are not. I believe he is applying the term to regenerate gentiles who show the law written in their hearts. Elsewhere, that is language for the new nature.

Though the latter two examples are disputed, no one will deny that Paul can speak in Phil 3:3 of gentile believers as the true circumcision who worship God in the Spirit and put no confidence in the flesh. This being undeniable, how can it be ruled out that Paul is not doing the same in the other two, less certain passages? Besides, Jesus had already spoken of one fold and one Shepherd and the many that would be gathered from the east and west into a new, or better, renewed nation that would bring forth the fruits of the kingdom (Mt 21:43). Who or what is this nation to whom the kingdom is given? When is the kingdom given?

Some believe Jesus is speaking of the Israel of the millennial future. I don’t think so. I believe the nation in view is the holy nation of which Peter spoke (1Pet 2:9), which he manifestly applies to the present household of God, the church, the pillar and ground of truth (1Tim 3:15). Contrary to the opinion of replacement theologians, this provisional interim, mystery form of the kingdom does nothing at all to change, let alone cancel any of the promises that remain to be fulfilled to post-tribulational Israel. Furthermore, the Philippians 3:3 passage echoes strongly Jesus’ statement to the woman of Samaria when He looks ahead to those from other nations who would worship God in spirit and in truth. It seems to me that such a ‘nation’ in this sense, could rightly be called, ‘the Israel of God’ bringing forth the fruits that fruits of the kingdom in the new way that Jesus spoke of the kingdom as present already.

I have never believed the church started at Pentecost or that this was the first time the Spirit indwelt the saints, as falsely taught by modern dispensationalism. The new birth is nothing new, as Jesus reprimands Nicodemus for not making the connection that as the nation could not enter the kingdom apart from a spiritual birth (Isa 66:8 et al), it cannot be different for the individual. Hence, Nicodemus, as a teacher in Israel, should have known that unless an individual is born of the Spirit and of the water (the metaphor for spiritual cleansing and renewal in Eze 36), that person, no less than the nation, cannot see the kingdom of God.

So while the body of Christ has been more perfectly ‘revealed’ as to its nature, as the result of the new revelation of the mystery of Christ, it is no more new than Christ is new. The body that is now revealed, as purchased by Jesus as the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, includes all the seed of the Spirit of all ages, and has a history that reaches back to righteous Abel and extends to the last person saved in the millennium.

When one is born of the Spirit, regardless of the age or dispensation, past or future, that person is indwelt by the Spirit of Christ, thus a member of His body, even if they were born of the Word and the Spirit in Old Testament times (1Pet 1:23), as Peter says the prophets (and we must infer all the living; Mt 22:32) were indwelt by none other than “the Spirit of Christ” (1Pet 1:11). To be alive by the Spirit is to be a child of God by reason of the divine nature, and this did not begin at Pentecost, and does not end at the rapture, as falsely taught by modern dispensationalism.

The idea that the saints of the tribulation, those who are born again after the tribulation has begun, do NOT belong to the body of Christ but to another, entirely separate people of God is an abominable theory that was unheard of till advanced by J.N. Darby in the mid 1800’s. It is a theory that has tranquilized the church, as you know. On the other hand, the other view that is most prominent in the modern church (which, of course, is never rightly identified as the living body of Christ) is the view that the church is the NEW Israel. The church has replaced Israel as the NEW people of God, the new spiritual nation, bringing forth the fruits of the kingdom is a favorite text (Mt 21:43). No future restoration of the literal nation of the Jews is in view. These are the two extremes that create the illusion of a choice, when there is no choice between equally false alternatives.

My concern is that reaction to these unscriptural extremes may go too far into a new extreme in which we completely jettison the word ‘church’ from our vocabulary as a legitimate referent to anything other than the false system that it presumably promotes. But I think the error derives, NOT so much from the word, but the false assumptions concerning its meaning. I think few informed scholars would question that the word has been misused but find the fault, not with the word itself, or even how it has been translated, but with the faulty theology that it has been misused to support and reinforce. Apart from the theological assumptions that I see as having little to do with the word itself, its meaning as originally intended by Jesus, Paul, Peter, and John is accessible to anyone with even the most basic use of a concordance and lexicon, or just comparing scripture with scripture, with the Spirit’s help, of course.

When we check its usage and basic meaning, we can see that the word, ‘church’ is only very rarely used to refer to the larger corporate body of Christ, as the corporate family of God in heaven and earth (e.g., Mt 16:18; Eph 3:10, 15; Col 1:18, 24; Heb 12:23). Otherwise, it is almost always used in connection with a local assembly of believers. The word itself, by itself, carries no particular religious sense at all. It just means an assembly, whether a mob is in view, as in Acts 19:32, 39, 41, or a distinctly local assembly of believers, as in the far greater instances of its use throughout the NT.

The Kahal (Hebrew transliteration), or congregation, translated ‘assembly’ in the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, was by no means a completely regenerate body (Acts 7:38), just as any local assembly since the cross may not be entirely regenerate. We might call this the ‘external’ church that, even when under scriptural church government, are not always all born again. Recognition of the predictability of this mixture, as anticipated in many of Jesus’ parables, prevents us from the habit of equating the outward assembly with the living body of Christ as known only perfectly to God (2Tim 2:19; 1Jn 2:19). This is well known but it contributes to the struggle to define the church in a way that does not separate it from the yet unbelieving but no less elect nation.

But this is not the case when we use the word, ‘church’ to refer to the body of Christ as a living organism, made up strictly of those who are alive to God by the Spirit. It is this assembly of the righteous that is vitally connected to Israel, and touched in all her tribulations on the way to her covenanted future. Like a Jeremiah in travail for the nation with whom God has bound His Name and Word, the living church of God should conceive of itself as internal entity within the nation, the remnant according to the election of grace, groaning in travail for the birth of the nation that the Word might be glorified in the coming of the kingdom to earth.

This election of grace is certainly NOT true of the outward assembly or ‘congregation’ of Israel, simply because not all, not even most of the congregation of Israel was ever saved at any time throughout the nation’s history. This is why the congregation of Old Testament Israel cannot be equated with the New Testament concept of the body of Christ. Though bound in covenant destiny and identity, the righteous remnant within the nation was always distinguished from the nation, though never conceived of independently from the nation. It is the same now. The true and living body of Christ is NOT the same as Israel! There is a distinction, of course; but distinction is not the same as independence and separation. What touches Israel touches those who are alive to the Spirit’s mind and purpose for Israel, her sufferings and her destiny, as bound together by covenant, even when the natural branches are insensible that they belong to a corporate election that commends them to both double judgment and double glory. The living branches of the gentiles are grafted in to become part of the tree of Israel. To be in the tree is to be ‘in Israel’. There’s no other place for the living to be! Those who live in the tree of Israel are inextricably bound by covenant to the natural branches that are temporarily cut off from the vital life and sap to which they must return, since their return is the ‘life from the dead’ for which the whole of creation is waiting.

The great mystery is how even those natural branches who are not yet alive are nonetheless reckoned as belonging to a corporate election that while guaranteeing eventual corporate salvation does NOT guarantee personal salvation apart from repentance and faith, but God will constrain their repentance at the appointed time (Ps 102:13). Like a corporate Jeremiah or Daniel, the church should conceive of itself in solidarity with the elect and eternally beloved nation, even in its momentary apostasy. The church is mid-wife to Israel’s redemption, prophesying, interceding, and travailing in hope till the whole nation be made alive, since only then can the covenant be fulfilled and the kingdom be established on earth.

The church should see itself as born in Zion (Ps 87:3-6; Gal 4:26), waiting in hope until the full coming in of ‘all Israel’ (the elect remnant) into the ‘everlasting righteousness’ of the New Covenant. Until then, whether spiritually alive or dead, whether for weal or woe, blessing or cursing, the Jew belongs to a corporate covenant election that is irrevocable, but for this to bring blessing rather than special cursing and discipline, faith must be born in the heart by the Spirit (Jn 6:63). This is NOT the case where apostate Christendom is concerned. God is not in covenant with that assembly! The New Covenant purchased in Christ’s blood has NOT reached its promised goal until the penitent Jewish survivors of the final tribulation are born ‘in one day’ to become the holy nation of millennial promise (Jer 30:7; Isa 66:8; Eze 39:22, 28-29; Dan 12:1; Zech 12:10; Mt 23:39; Acts 3:21; Ro 11:26; Rev 1:7 to mention only a few).

In contrast, apostate Christendom is NOT in covenant with God, except in the sense of greater responsibility due to greater and more stoutly resisted light. In contrast to apostate Christendom, Israel is in covenant for weal or for woe. Jews that come to faith in Christ are blessed with all the blessings of the New Covenant. Conversely, those who fail to turn remain no less in covenant but the covenant of works that bind them to the curses of the law, the end of which is hell. Hence, God is in covenant with Israel, despite her temporary unbelief. But He is NOT in covenant with apostate Christendom, the assembly of the ungodly, the false church.

Should we avoid the word, “church” in order to avoid the false associations that the word summons in the popular mind, as reinforcing the lie that the church is a separate institution that no longer has any direct bond to the covenant nation? The error is based on a great deal more than just misperceptions associated with how translators translate a Greek word. I submit that this tendency will not be corrected simply by clearing up the translation question and exposing the historic misuse of the word. The problem is far more theological than linguistic.

I have said that the church is “the true Israel of God within Israel” in continuity with the remnant according to the election of grace, inclusive of all saints, even those living before the cross. Others take the term, ‘the Israel of God’ in Gal 6:16 as reference to Jews that have been born again in contrast to those who are not the regenerate Israel of God in this sense. Even some scholars, mostly dispensational, take this view. They would not allow that term, ‘the Israel of God’ to be applied to what we call the church. But to say that gentile believers are never identified ‘as Israel’ would seem to contribute to the separation of the church and Israel, the very thing that they are trying to help us avoid.

If Paul does apply such terms to gentile believers, there is no such application to the external church as a visible institution, but only to the truly born again people of the Spirit, the living body of Christ. On the other hand, some may reasonably argue that whereas gentile believers are “in” Israel in the sense that they are grafted in among them (the natural branches), this does not mean that they become Israel. They contend that only Jews are ever called Israel, and when Paul is interested to distinguish the living from the dead, he proceeds to qualify that only regenerate Jews count as God’s true Israel.

It is here that I tend to disagree. If Paul can so undeniably call gentile believers ‘the circumcision’ in Phil 3:3, why should it be thought impossible that he call regenerate gentiles and Jews ‘the Israel of God’ in Gal 6:16 or Ro 2:26-29? But this point is perhaps not so crucial if we can agree that it is impossible that one who is ‘in Christ’ is necessarily also ‘in Israel’, and therefore bound to God’s covenant purpose for that nation’s present affliction and future millennial destiny. The Jewish Jesus is the gentile believer’s only claim to the promises made exclusively to Israel. His circumcision counts for their uncircumcision. His Jewish credentials as the ‘seed of David according to the flesh’ is counted over to them as His seed. His Jewish inheritance is theirs because they are in Him and that qualifies them for all that is promised to Israel, as all the promises are yea and amen in Him.

I can’t see how this is a problem. It seems self-evident. It so clearly follows, that if one is washed in the blood and born of the Spirit, how are they not then part of the body of Christ? We may be sure that the Spirit that will be poured out on the penitent survivors of Israel at the end of the tribulation is the same Spirit that baptized believers into the body of Christ at Pentecost and ever since. This means that post-tribulational Israel will be no less the body of Christ on earth in that day. The promised Holy Spirit will do for them what He does for believers today. He will baptize them into the one body. There is one body. Though the mystery is newly revealed, the body of Christ is not new. It did not begin at Pentecost and it does not end its tenure on earth at the rapture. The saved of Israel in that coming day, with all who come to faith from among the nations, will be no less the body of Christ on earth, though not yet glorified.

So much to sort through, I know, but that’s my view as it now stands.

In devoted friendship, Reggie

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From the Saturday night LIVE Bible studies, this session on Hebrews Chapter 10 was particularly rich with Gospel proclamation. Reggie Kelly’s participation begins about 10 minutes into the study. (With Tom Quinlan, Ryan Couch, Phil Norcom, Travis Bennett and others)

Reggie’s participation begins at about the 10 minute mark. Don’t give up early. This session gets better and better as it goes on.

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I would like to hear your explanation as to why “bride” and “wife” are used to describe the same group of the redeemed? Or, is a distinction actually being made with respect to the same group? I have heard some teach that the “wife” represents the redeemed of Israel (Hosea) and the “bride” represents the redeemed from among the Gentiles. What say you? – fl

I think it is precisely so that we will not make such unjustified distinctions. The wife and the bride are the same. Redeemed Israel and the body of Christ are one. One of the reasons why the woman of Rev 12 has been so misinterpreted is because traditionally the church has “over” distinguished between Israel and the church. Is there a distinction? Yes, there is an important distinction, but it is not of the nature usually assumed. The church is simply the Israel within Israel. Regardless of how many gentiles swell the ranks of the body of Christ, the people of Christ, the true seed of Abraham, remain no less the Israel of God within the still predestined nation of the Jews. However much a mystery has been newly revealed, the church is the people of the Spirit of all times and dispensations.

However much the revelation of the mystery of the gospel has brought to greater light the nature of the unity of the mystical body of Christ as the one new man of the Spirit, still, the body of Christ remains in corporate continuity and solidarity with the “remnant according to the election of grace,” i.e., the Israel within Israel. In this sense, the regenerate “remnant of her seed” are distinct but not separate from larger Israel, as the yet “elect woman” who, though presently blinded and under divine discipline, is predestined to be an all saved national entity. The fulfillment of the covenant in the salvation of “all Israel,” is precisely what Satan most fears and resists, and why he so assiduously seeks the destruction of the woman before this can be established with real flesh and blood Jews in real space and time history in public vindication of the everlasting covenant.

We may compare the relation of the church to Israel, as we would compare the regenerate spirit to a body that though subject to death because of sin is no less destined for resurrection because of the promise. In this sense, the living church, like the living Lord of glory, is joined to the elect body of corporate Israel. Though presently dead spiritually, Israel is destined for full corporate salvation because of the promise and election of the fathers, the spiritual seed within the seed, as the church is a spiritual nation within the nation. You see, one cannot be “in Christ” and not be “in Israel.” In that sense, the church is an internal phenomenon within Israel, i.e., the nation of the natural branches.

As much as God remains in covenant with Israel despite her present blindness, so the church should never see herself as separate and apart, but like a corporate, weeping Jeremiah, travail in birth till Christ be formed in the elect nation. This we do, even while we preach the good news and prophesy to the nations of the glories of the New Covenant. God is not in such a covenant of predestined mercy with the apostate church of world Christendom. He remains, however, whether for weal or woe, benefit or judgment, in a unique covenant bond with Israel, and so are all who are born of His Spirit, or should be, were our identity not so obscured through false doctrine concerning our relationship to Israel, as though we belong to an entirely separate entity. Distinct? Yes! Separate? No!

This is the logic of why Israel receives the double for the double. Even in their unbelief, they are His national son, called to be the servant nation, though presently prodigal and estranged from the new nature of the Spirit, they, as a national Jewish entity, are no less predestined, uniquely, as a nation, for full corporate salvation. This is the covenant that will be openly vindicated throughout the millennium in the sight of all nations, and it is an election that God will require all nations to honor.

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This is more than a predicted event of the end time; it is a principle of the Spirit. The veil that hides Christ is only as strong as the pride of human self sufficiency. Christ is revealed at the end of strength! The one obstruction to revelation is the veil of the flesh, which speaks of the strength that must be broken of “the pride of its power” (Lev 26:19). That is why Christ is the end (goal) of the law for righteousness, because the law was given to take away this perverse presumption of power.

If the last days are indeed the shaking of all things, we may be sure that the church that will speak to Jacob in the wilderness is not one that is a stranger to the lengths that God will go to remove this deceitful kind of power. What kind of power is this that requires such severe dealings, even, and particularly with religious man at his best? Are we right to suppose that this power is lodged more deeply in the religious humanism of Judaism than in Christianity? Hardly.

Will Christ be fully formed in the church of the last witness apart from a deep travail of the Spirit sufficient to ‘cast down’ this hidden conceit of the heart? (see Gal 4:19). What will press the church to this? If the church, as the pillar and ground of the truth, will be the prophetic voice to Israel in the tribulation (Dan 11:32-33; 12:3, 10; Rev 12:10), what kind of shaking must surely come in advance of that time in order to deeply empty the servant people that will speak to Jacob in his distress?

Christ was crucified in weakness and raised in power. Paul meant this not only descriptively of Jesus but prescriptively for the church. It is a statement of our corporate calling to Israel and the nations. This is why Jesus had more than a few isolated predictions in mind when He said, “Ought not Christ to have suffered …?” He was referring to the much larger pattern of the many servant sons (Joseph, David, etc.) who anticipated in their sufferings the preeminent Servant. This is how we must speak to Israel.

Must Jacob bear his tribulation alone and all the church go free? Are we to suppose that those sealed servants of God who will suffer with Israel during her wilderness flight have been only recently saved after an alleged pre-trib rapture? No, they are servants with a history in God who know the fellowship of His sufferings and the power of His resurrection. It seems that prophetic logic would forbid that God would speak to Jacob through any lesser agency than a corporate servant son who has passed through death to know and testify to “the God who raises the dead.” Only by such a church would God speak / prophesy to Jacob in the day of his calamity. This is why I am led to expect some deep dealings that will shake and humble the church in necessary advance of Jacob’s trouble, not only individually, but corporately.

As things threaten almost daily to bring radical changes to the world as we’ve known it, it is only a matter of time till the dam breaks, not in the final form of the last 3 ½ years of “the final and unequaled tribulation,” as many falsely expect, but in the form of seismic changes that must precede and prepare for that time. This too will be costly, but it is this time that I believe God will be doing His great work of preparation in the church for the final thrust of witness and evangelism (Dan 11:32-33; 12:3), which, according to Rev 7:9, 14 will result in the greatest harvest of souls the world has ever seen. So the last witness of the tribulation church is guaranteed unprecedented success by the inerrant Word of prophecy. If our eye will be made utterly single in the pursuit of His glory, we will count it privilege to suffer for His sake, as a supreme gift of grace (Phil 1:29).

I am hoping for just a little time to probe this question together in our upcoming conference.

Yours in the Beloved, Reggie

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Hi Reggie, I have been reading your post “Flesh and Blood Shall Not Inherit the Kingdom”. I have a question pertaining to the following point you made:

“This, of course, leaves the question of where will the glorified, resurrected redeemed be in relation to the saints of Israel and all that will be saved during the millennium. Will they co-habit the same space? Will mortals dwell with glorified immortals in the same physical location and discourse with one another as naturally as mortals do now? I don’t think so. That is not how the scriptures depict the millennium.”

In the context of the Abrahamic covenant, the promise of land is given to him personally and to his seed, meaning Christ as Paul stipulates in Gal 3:16. So resurrection is necessary for the fulfillment of this covenantal promise to Abraham, to his Seed, and to all who are in the seed – “And if you belong to Christ, you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” (Gal 3:29). But does it not follow, then, that just as Abraham will physically walk in his inheritance of a land “from the great river to the Euphrates” so will we? Consonant with the literalness of this promise, the following verses suggest that Gentile believers could be physically present with the Jews in the earth at that time:

They sing a new song:

“You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation; you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on earth.” (Rev 5:9, 10)

What man is he that feareth the LORD? him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose. His soul shall dwell at ease; and his seed shall inherit the earth. (Ps. 25:13)

But the meek shall inherit the earth. (Ps. 37:11)

The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein forever. (Ps. 37:29)

The seed also of his servants shall inherit it, and they that love his name shall dwell therein. (Ps. 69:36)

…but he that putteth his trust in me shall inherit the land, and shall possess my holy mountain. (Is. 57:13)

I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and from Judah inheritors of my mountains; my chosen (elect in KJV – in the Seed, we are part of the elect nation) shall inherit it, and my servants shall settle there. (Is 65:9)

To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant– these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer (see Is 56:3-7)

I know that I have sidestepped the issue of flesh and blood not inheriting the kingdom, but obviously, I’m coming at it from the covenantal angle. I’m looking forward to your response.

Robert

I am aware of the problem and know that many have wrestled with this question. The more intimate our knowledge of the details of how the prophets depict life in the millennium, the more difficult it seems to understand how the glorified redeemed will co-habit the same physical space with mortals, unless we are able to conceive of a more transcendent and multidimensional kind of occupation by those who will not be angels, but will certainly be “like the angels” (Mt 12:25).

Paul speaks of a perfection of knowledge that will transcend all temporal limits when he says, “but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1Cor 13:12). This is just one more thing that underscores how radically different our resurrected state will be to even the most exceptional Spirit-filled life in this present age. It’s another kind of existence. But this does not mean that ruling and reigning with Christ out of a spiritual realm over cities and nations is any less a real bodily inheritance of the earth. Nor should we suppose that because glorified saints are not immediately visible to mortals living all over the millennial earth that they are any the less kings and priests that both inherit and also reign upon the earth.

I certainly see your point about Abraham and the elect seed inheriting the earth, even more particularly the designated boundaries of the promised Land, but I also see that progressive revelation has expanded the scope of the promise to a higher spiritual plane of a city that has foundations (Heb 11:10), the heavenly Jerusalem, the mother of us all (Gal 4:26). This is the city foursquare that comes down in final perfection on a new heaven and earth. With the former earth now ‘passed away’ (Rev 21:1), the New Jerusalem of the new heavens and earth is distinguished from the millennial Jerusalem, as having “no more temple”  at its center (Ezekiel chapters 40 – 48 in marked contrast w/ Rev 21:22).

The “new earth” is also distinguished as having “no more sea” (Rev 21:1). This is vivid and marked discontinuity with the present earth and designated parameters of the covenant Land. That is something beyond even a redeemed millennial Jerusalem. Yet the promise is not viewed as in the least way diminished or compromised, since those who are in Christ inherit not only a Land within circumscribed boundaries, but “all things” (Ro 8:32; 1Cor 3:21-23).

The millennium has its indispensable convenantal purpose that will not be circumvented or side stepped. It is the open and public vindication of all God has promised the Jewish people, as a distinct and visible ethnic entity, from whom the election can never depart (Ro 11:29). To this end they have been uniquely preserved and not suffered to assimilate. The millennium is a covenantal necessity essential to the name and Word of God. Because it is then that the Jews, as Jews in particular, will visibly exist for one thousand years in that particular Land as an all righteous people without instance of backsliding or defection (Isa 4:3; 54:13; 59:21; 60:21; 66:22; Jer 31:34).

This will be as a Spirit-filled nation, still in natural bodies, building houses, having children, and evangelizing the nations. Primary among many other things, the millennium is necessary to show that God is able to establish His covenant with a people who, in themselves, have proven hopelessly prone to backslide, but who now, as an entirely righteous nation, will be able to “securely” keep the Land forever without further threat of judgment and potential exile. The only way abiding security in the Land can be forever is if all of Israel has attained to a righteousness that is forever, even the “everlasting righteousness” of the “everlasting covenant” (Jer 31:34; 32:40; Dan 9:24). Only God could do this by His sovereign power, and that is precisely the point that the millennium exists to demonstrate in the sight of all nations.

The millennium is a distinct and necessary stage on the way to the final perfection, but it is not yet that perfection. It is not yet “the end” (1Cor 15:54). I do see that Abraham, as also the twelve apostles, inherit the present earth in the time that Jesus calls, “the regeneration” (Mt 19:28). They will certainly be present on the earth, even ‘bodily’, albeit not in the same kind of body (1Cor 15:40, 44, 49-50; Phil 3:21), and perhaps not visible with same kind of perception. I believe the glorified saints will be “like” the invisible rulers who presently rule the kingdoms of this world from the heavenly places.

This is not absence from the earth. We tend to think so much in terms of a spatial “above and beneath” that we neglect the mystical view that is thoroughly Hebraic, as implicit in Paul’s words when he says, “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ …” (1Cor 5:4).

We may also recall how certain of the saints appeared bodily to many that were in Jerusalem after the Lord’s resurrection (Mt 27:53), or the appearance of Samuel to Saul (1Sam 28:13-19), or the transfiguration (Mk 9:4; Lk 9:31), or the unusual nature of His words to Mary (Jn 20:17-18).

An even more ready to hand example are those times when the risen Jesus would appear suddenly in a room, while showing complete knowledge of all that had been spoken days before (Mk 16:12, 14; Jn 20:25-27). Certainly His presence was there before the time of His appearances. In the same way the Spirit filled saints of the millennium will certainly be aware of the presence of the glorified redeemed, and there will doubtless be times of bodily appearances, but not to all; just as Paul alone could hear the distinct voice that those in his entourage could not hear (Acts 22:9).

I have a conception of a bodily resurrected Abraham, Job (19:25-27), Isaiah (Isa 26:19), Daniel, and all the righteous up to the point of the first resurrection (Dan 12:2, 13), not away in some detached place from the earth, but here, on the present earth, ruling over cities and nations, albeit in a greatly transformed mode of existence, and not immediately and all times visible to the inhabitants of the millennial earth. They are, however, completely visible to one another, and to the Lord, whose face is ever before them, regardless of spatial location.

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