Q&A 13: When the did the church begin? Acts 2? Acts 9? Acts 10? Acts13? Acts 28?

OK, the question today is, when did the church begin? And on your notes, it says it gives you several options. I didn't know Vern always started with a quiz. Acts 2, Acts 9, Acts 10, Acts 13, or 28. And as Vern says, to get to the root of the question, we need to define two terms. And the terms he wants to define are dispensationalism and ultra-dispensationalism.

Now, dispensationalism, I have to tell you, is the Christian cuss word. If you mention that in most circles, you know, it's almost like, oh, he said dispensation. So how do you define it? What would you say a dispensation is? Clear teaching. Clear teaching. That's really good, actually.

A dispensation, really, the Greek word is oikonomia, which means the administration in the household of God. And if you take God's plan for creation and humanity and make it look like a house with lots of different activities and groups and people going on in there, it needs an administrator or an administration. And oikonomia means the administration in the household of God, which means that it can be different in one group or one time frame as to another. Verne says a classical definition has three primary distinctions and characteristics.

The distinction between Israel and the church, as opposed to the church replacing Israel, that is the number one issue in today's theological discussions, especially with Reformed theology. You will hear everywhere that the church really sort of slid in to where Israel, when Israel was set aside, then God just moved Israel and the church together. The church is like Israel, just different name.

That's not true. The second issue is what is known as literal hermeneutics. Who doesn't know what hermeneutics means? Hermeneutics means just interpretation of the Bible. So the issue is literal interpretation of the Word of God as opposed to imposing allegorical interpretation arbitrarily upon the text of Scripture.

You've heard these terms exegesis and energesis. Exegesis means you go into the Bible, you look for what's there, and you take it out literally. Entegesis means that you have already got an opinion, and you go into the Bible to find verses that will back up your opinion. Covenant theology are masters at doing that. And the third one is the view which seeks the glory of God as the underlying purpose of God in the world, as opposed to redemption. Reformed theology looks at the whole work of God from man's frame of reference, and that is to accomplish redemption. In the eternal covenant between the Father and the Son, once the Lord Jesus had paid the price for the sins of the world and satisfied the Father, was he under any obligation to offer redemption to man?

How many think he was? How many think he probably wasn't? How many of you guys are too afraid to put up your hand? No, he's under no obligation whatsoever. And the reason that's so important is because we live under this environment of grace. If God were under any obligation, he wouldn't be gracious. See that? He has to be free, free of all obligations, in order to offer redemption. If he's not free, then he's under an obligation, then it isn't grace. Say that again? He made an obligation between himself, the Father and the Son. But no obligation to you and me. None.

When you have a covenant, you have parties to the covenant, right? And a covenant is, in my vernacular, in your vernacular, a covenant is a transaction. It's a deal. If you come and buy a house from me, You're going to sign a contract that says the seller is going to do something and you're going to do something and when you get to the closing, hopefully both of you have fulfilled your covenants. You're going to count your fingers. That's right. When God makes a covenant, he made the covenant, the eternal covenant between the Father and the Son, you weren't anywhere around.

You're not part of it. You get to be the beneficiary of what they did, but under no obligation. And that's really important when you come to talk about when did the church begin. Because God is under no obligation to start a church. If you say that we are just an extension of Israel, then we are put under some covenant relationships that God made with the nation of Israel, and then we don't live under grace.

See that? As far as the covenant goes, was the deal that if Israel was obedient, they're blessed and if they're not, they're not blessed? You're talking about the Abrahamic Covenant? What's that? The Abrahamic Covenant? Yeah. Or the Mosaic Covenant? Both of those? Sure. It was based solely... The Abrahamic Covenant was unilateral, meaning God went to Abraham and said, I'm going to do all this stuff whether you want to go along with it or not. who's going to do it.

I'm going to make you a great nation. In the Mosaic Covenant he gives the law and it's a if you do this I will bless you, if you don't do this I will curse you. Who are the participants in the Mosaic Covenant? It's God, Jehovah and the nation of Israel.

But in the Eternal Covenant between the Father and the Son when it comes to dealing with the sin issue, the parties are the Father and the Son. They're the only two parties in the transaction. Now, once the covenant is fulfilled, God is under no obligation to offer redemption to mankind. So what was the covenant between the Father and the Son, just that He would take care of the sin issue?

Yes, yes, because God is holy, righteous, and good, and sin is an offense against His person, it must be satisfied. It must be. God cannot sweep sin under the rug, or He can't turn His back and say, ah, never mind. He can't do that because of His righteousness. And so, the Lord Jesus becomes a man. He dies to pay the penalty and to satisfy God.

That great word, propitiation, means satisfaction. The Father looks at the work of Christ on the cross and says, I'm satisfied about the offense committed against me by the sins of the whole world. I'm okay with it. because of what you did. And because of what you did, I'll raise you from the dead, which he did. But once that's completed, where are we? We're not in the deal yet. Right? Because once that's completed, then the father and the son can say, well, now that I'm satisfied, God says, I'm going to offer salvation to you.

And what does salvation include? The real issue about salvation is God is satisfied, isn't it? You go to a sinner who's lost and condemned in sin and you say to him, Jesus died on the cross and was buried and raised again, dead, buried and raised. God is satisfied about sins.

Do you believe him? And faith is the cool thing because faith is the one thing you can do you can't take any credit for. So all the credit stays with God where it belongs. See that? The value of faith is in what you believe, not in the fact that you believe.

But Jesus had us in mind when he got on that cross, right? He did, but he wasn't under obligation to us. And I think it's an important point to understand, because if it was any other way, then it wouldn't have been grace. Grace is unmerited and unlimited, unmerited, unlimited, unmerited, unlimited blessings from God, based on what? What Christ did on the cross. Not anything you did. Because if it was based on what you did, it wouldn't have been grace.

What about Old Testament Saints? Old Testament Saints is a different thing. The salvation of Old Testament Saints is based on God looking forward to this transaction He was going to complete on the cross, and He went ahead and I like to look at it this way. He got out his redemption credit card and said, if you Old Testament saints believe in what I'm telling you, then I will count you righteous. That's what he did to Abraham. And Abraham was accounted righteous because he believed God. But God's accounting him righteous was looking forward to what Christ was going to do. That's why the sins of the Jews are covered, not put away. They're just covered over, not put away. So when Jesus shows up on the planet, what does John the Baptist say to him? Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Take away was a new thing. Ultra-dispensationalism says that, well, the church didn't really begin in Acts 2. It began, I don't know, Acts 9, Acts 13, Acts 28, something like that. Maybe the best way to go at this is, what is the church? What is it? It's the body of Christ. How do you get into it? What's that? God puts you there. How does he do it?

You believe, and the Holy Spirit puts you into Christ. On the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit of God came and they believed, he began to baptize 3,000 people that day. He put them into Christ. That's what the church is. That's the body of Christ. It started in Acts 2. Now the guys that say Acts 9 or other places are waiting for the Apostle Paul to show up on the scene because the Apostle Paul has the expanded revelation about the church and about the Gentiles being in the church and all these other things. And they said, well, you can't really have a church until Paul comes on the scene, because all you've got in the early church are Jews. Is that true? Up until Cornelius's house, by the way, where Peter was, were the people that were in the body of Christ, they were only Jews? Before Cornelius, you know, of any Gentile, became a member of the body of Christ?

Could he be a Roman soldier? Is a Roman soldier a believer? Who knows? Now understand, the Roman soldier was before the cross. So what's the deal with him? How about the thief on the cross next to Christ? Is he in the body of Christ? How many think he is? Now hold on. How many days was it between the death of Christ and Pentecost? 50 days? When did the church start? At the cross or at Pentecost? At Pentecost. So how could the thief be in? How could he be in? He couldn't be in. What's that?

He's in paradise, but that paradise and the body of Christ are not the same thing. The church and paradise are not the same thing. The church and heaven are not the same thing. Mike, the scripture doesn't say that the church started at Pentecost. The scripture says that 3,000 were added. Now, if they were added, what were they added to? They were added to the church. The church had to have a beginning before that day of Pentecost. They were added to the apostles and the first group in the upper room that went into Christ. They were added to them. As we go through this, we're going to run into a verse where Peter talked about in the beginning, the beginning of the church, referring to Acts 2. We'll get there in a minute. What's that? I'm on page 2. Everybody on page 2? So in dispensations, are we dispensing with anything? And Vern talks about we define dispensation in the classic terms. Within Christendom, there are deviations from classical dispensationalism which retain the name. Most prominent among these are the progressive dispensationalists. Now these guys, most of them originally came from Dallas Seminary. These are three guys that you probably recognize at least some of their names.

Robert Saucy and Blazing and Bach. They began to write things in the 60s and 70s about progressive dispensationalism. In other words, what they were really trying to do. was to bring Israel more back into the body of Christ. They were leaning towards and trying to find a bridge between a dispensationalist and a covenant person. And really what these guys' progressive dispensationalism is, it's really covenant theology.

That's really what it is. And I don't think we need to spend a lot of time criticizing these guys. There are lots of books written. including some by Miles Stanford, that criticize the progressives. Now, on the three bullet points there, it says that, while whole books have been written to critique progressive dispensationalism, along with numerous articles, here are some of the most significant things lost or at risk in progressive dispensationalism.

The first one is the blessed hope of Christ appearing as a pre-tribulation rapture, Titus 2.13. Everybody understand what pre-tribulation rapture is? Anybody not understand it? That prior to the tribulation the church will be taken out of here. The progressive don't necessarily buy that.

Two, the clarity of scripture, a frequent term of progressives dispensational literature is already or not yet, which regularly confuses the time and distinctions established by the father, Acts 1.6-8, this loss of time clarity also carries over into the selective allegorization of scriptural passages. What they'll do, rather than saying this is a definite event They'll say, well, maybe it is, or maybe it isn't.

They would, like I asked you, is the good thief, as we know, in the body of Christ? And some of you said yes. Right? Why? Because a progressive would say yes. You'd say, sure he is. Well, if that's true, then the church had to begin before Acts was even written. Right? it would have to begin in John 20, right? So the progressives would say, well, probably not then.

Ultra-dispensationalism just really, really super? No. Verne makes an interesting point here. He says Acts 9, 13, and 28, ultra-dispensationalist positions appropriately note that the church has been silent on the apostleship and the message of the Apostle Paul. The influence of Catholicism and covenant theology have tended to diminish in the minds of Christians the uniqueness of Paul's apostleship and the special revelation given to him alone and the message that was communicated.

If you took your Bible and you took Paul's epistles and you ripped them out and then you started to read the Bible, what would you miss? What wouldn't be in there? The rapture. The rapture wouldn't be there. What else? What wouldn't be there? Now think about it. Peter, James, and John. What's that? What wouldn't be there? The body of Christ wouldn't be there. Identification wouldn't be there. Spiritual gifts would be there. Your position in Christ and the heavenlies wouldn't be there. Pre-trib rapture wouldn't be there.

It's interesting. So you take Paul out, and you can see why an ultra-dispensationalist said, well, we want to focus in on what Paul had to teach, because it was different than what the other twelve were teaching. Was it different? It wasn't different, it just was progressive. A progressive revelation.

And when Paul goes up to Jerusalem for the first council, is he up there, is he the one that's on the, you know, that they're going to question him to make sure his doctrine is straight? I understand. He goes up to Jerusalem. He goes to the center of everything. Why did he go up there? He wanted to check something out. What was he checking out?

Do the Gentiles have to be circumcised? So who was being questioned? Paul or the other twelve? The other twelve. Paul was making sure that they were teaching the same thing he was teaching. kind of gutsy on his part, don't you think? But they all agreed with him. That was the cool thing. They all agreed with him. They didn't quite understand everything he was saying, but they agreed with him because they understood that it was a grace proposition.

And if it was a grace proposition, you couldn't sneak any of the tenants of Israel in. You couldn't say, well, they need to be circumcised. No. No, they don't. No, they don't. Because what's the issue? How do you get in the body of Christ from your side of the ledger? You believe in the person and work of Christ. That's it. Let's go to page 3.

At the bottom in 2, Ultradispensation acknowledges that the spiritual sign gifts of the Acts period are no longer in operation. and reference 1 Corinthians 13. The Acts period covers about 30 years of time, ending in 61 AD. Times was fading, but ended in 70 AD. Knowledge and prophecy ended with the completion of the New Testament in 96 AD. What completed the New Testament?

What was the last book? Revelation. Who is it written by? It was written in 96. How long had Paul been dead? at least 30 years. And all the rest of the apostles, probably all dead, at least 30 years. And John writes, he writes the Epistle of John, or he writes the Gospel of John, the three Epistles of John and Revelation. He does all that in the 90s. Well, all these other guys are gone.

In Acts 10, Peter goes to the Gentiles by the Lord's divine revelation and insistence goes to Cornelius's house, and in Acts 11 he goes back to Jerusalem and explains to the Jewish brothers, and here's what he says to them. And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as he did upon us at the beginning. The beginning of what? The Holy Spirit fell on us at the beginning. When did the Holy Spirit fall on them? Acts 2. That's the beginning. He's amazed. He's standing there, and by the way, the Holy Spirit has to interrupt him because he won't shut up, right?

He says, the Holy Spirit fell on him as he did upon us at the beginning, at our beginning of the body of Christ in Acts 2. And I remember the word of the Lord, how he said, how he used to say, John baptized with water, but you will baptize with the Holy Spirit. That's the difference, the baptism with the Holy Spirit. What is the baptism of the Holy Spirit? He's placing you into Christ. He places you into Christ.

That's what it is. Therefore, if God gave to them the same gift as he gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I should stand in God's way? The key phrase there is that the Spirit of God fell upon them as he did upon us at the beginning. What's the beginning?

Acts 2. So Peter made the initial point here about when the beginning of the church was. Notice that the Holy Spirit came on both Jews before Acts 9, Gentiles after Acts 9 in exactly the same way. The interesting thing about Cornelius' house was the events there were identical to what happened in the upper room. Identical.

The introduction of the gospel to the Gentiles in Acts 10 was done by Peter, it was not done by Paul. So that sort of messes with an ultra-dispensationalist view that the church began in Acts 9, because the first introduction of Gentiles being baptized into Christ was Acts 10, and the witness was Peter, not Paul.

You okay with that? Make sense? 1 Corinthians 2 and Ephesians 4-5 tell us that we were baptized spiritually into the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit, which identifies us spiritually with Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. Scripture certainly supports this teaching.

There is no distinction made, however, between how this happens with Jews in Acts 2, Peter is present there, Samaritans in Acts 8, Peter is present there, Gentiles in Acts 10, Peter is also present there, or Jews in the Gentile land in Acts 19, where Paul is present. Peter presents the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ in Acts 2, Acts 4, 2 and 33, just as Paul presents these truths in Acts 9. The point being this, the body of Christ is created by the Holy Spirit baptizing individuals or placing them into Christ. He does that by including them in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

They get disconnected from Adam. That's where the identification truths come in. You get disconnected positionally from Adam, you go through the cross in Christ, and when you're raised, you're raised in him to newness of life. That event of human beings being included in that began at Acts 2.

You know what's interesting about that? It took some 20 years later for Paul to explain to the rest of them what really happened there. It doesn't mean it didn't happen just because he's the one that understood it. It doesn't mean it didn't happen. Does that make sense? Okay.

Questions. The typical Acts 9 ultra dispensation will make much of the presentation to Israel in early chapters of Acts and the Gentiles in the later chapters. The fact is that Acts presents a transition of ministry throughout. Though Gentiles are mentioned in Acts 1, I don't know, it's been a while since we've studied the book of Acts, right? I think we did it on Tuesday, or we did it on Wednesday night.

Acts is, when you look at the book of Acts, really all it is is a historical book on two guys. There's two guys that the book of Acts focuses on. Who are the two men? Peter and Paul. And there's a transition about two-thirds of the way through from Peter to Paul.

Peter was the spokesman for what was going on in the church in the first part of Acts, and then Paul comes in because now when Christ ascended into heaven in Acts 1, he said to his disciples, I want you to go in and I want you to wait for empowerment by the Spirit, which he's telling them, wait for Pentecost to happen.

And I also want you to preach the gospel, the good news about me, and here's how he put it, to the Jews, to the Samaritans, and to the whole world. And you know what? That's exactly what the book of Acts describes. Everything starts in Jerusalem, and it starts to spread out to Samaria, and then it goes out to the world. That's exactly how it happened. So they were, I mean really, the apostles were just following Christ's direction at the time that he went to heaven.

And Peter was, if you study Acts, Peter was reluctant to go to Cornelius' house. God had to send some Gentile guys down to get him, and he allowed a Gentile to stay in Simon the Potter's house, which was unheard of if you were a godly Jew. And he had to have this whole scene with the blanket coming down with the things on it that were not kosher and all of that to convince Peter, wait a minute, we got a whole new deal going here. And then he goes over to Cornelius' house and this Pentecost thing happens and it knocks him over.

Then he goes back to Jerusalem and he tells the other guys, hey, fellas, remember the same thing happened in a house of Gentiles. Which was proof to him that the church was going to, or this body of Christ was going to be extended to all Gentiles. which was a surprise to him.

Paul had a special ministry appointment to the Gentiles and Peter and the others to the Jews. Paul was also given special revelation and personal teaching from the Lord which made him unique in what he wrote to the churches. Only he writes about the body of Christ being sealed with the Holy Spirit, etc. However, Paul's ministry of letters in which he writes these things did not begin until sometime after his conversion. Based on the above and viewing the previous transitions from one dispensation to another, it's best to view Acts as a period of transition in which the Church was indeed begun in Acts 2, but in which understanding of what is meant and the working out of its implications took time. Are you alright with that statement? Are you alright with the fact that God would initiate something and then it would take some time for him to educate all those who were involved in it to get the full understanding of it? I think if you just pick up, I'll give you an example. Pick up one of John's epistles, one or two or three, doesn't matter.

And try to read it, I know this is hard to do, but try to read it without any influence from what you've read in Paul. What John makes all these statements about position, but he never explains anything because he's Jewish. And the Jewish writers always, you know, they gave you a picture and then they gave you another picture, they gave you another picture. Paul, because he was more of a Greek thinker, was a very logical guy, and he would start at step one, and he'd logically go to two, and then three, and then four, and then five, and then six, and he'd explain, he'll explain to you what John means.

Do you see that? And when John writes his epistles in ninety-something, he assumes that who he's writing to have read what Paul had to say and they understand. I don't think you can understand John's epistles unless you are somewhat educated in what Paul has to say. You alright with that?

Because he does. Peter even said, boy, you know that Paul, he says some strange things every now and then, which are hard to understand. How tough would it be for God to have a guy like Paul show up and begin to tell you about being co-crucified with Christ? If you're a Jew, you're thinking, what is he talking about? As a matter of fact, in the 10 o'clock hour, we're going to talk more about that.

To compare it with the beginning of the previous dispensation of the Law of Moses was given a part of the Law, the Ten Commandments, and then given parts later so that the Jews finally had all the Law but not yet the land. They had to take that militarily. There's a progressive revelation to the nation of Israel. When Moses goes up and gets the Law, It comes back down in their 40 years, getting rid of the doubters, so to speak, and they go in the land and they have to possess the land.

The whole thing of God with the Mosaic Covenant didn't take place, actually never did get totally fulfilled, and the explanation of it. It's the same thing with Christianity, even with the Apostle Paul. What he writes in Galatians, and in 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and then you read Ephesians and Colossians, you can see that there's a progressive revelation to him about some things that he doesn't write about early on. Because Ephesians, I view Ephesians as the PhD course of Christianity.

It has every believer positioned in the heavenlies. We're all there. Well, if you study the book of Romans, which is Christianity 101, you never leave the earth. It's all on the earth. But in Ephesians, you're off the earth. progressive revelation. I'm going to skip down to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5th paragraph.

The Lord used Peter and the Lord used Paul and the Lord used John, the last living apostle as far as we know. But to the Lord Jesus goes the glory and the honor. That's the important part. What ultra-dispensationalists will try to do is give the glory and honor to Paul. It doesn't belong there. not even to Paul, through whom the truths of this present grace dispensation were uniquely revealed. Let us therefore not be divided between Peter and Paul, nor Acts 9, in which Paul was still called Saul, had not yet been given unique revelation, had not yet written any letters, and had not yet met with the other apostles.

Paul did, however, on conversion, display the same power of the Holy Spirit in his speaking that Peter showed on the day of Pentecost. So when Paul is saved, he goes into Damascus, and he's blind, right? He doesn't eat for three days, four days, and then the Lord sends a guy to sort of wake him up, and takes his blindness away from him, and tells him that he's going to suffer a lot of things for Christ. and he's going to be an apostle to the Gentiles. And Paul immediately goes out into Damascus and he starts preaching with the same intensity that Peter preached at the day of Pentecost.

That's being gifted by the Spirit. So, it's interesting with, again, with ultra-dispensationalists. They say the church begins at Acts 9 when Paul is saved. I don't think you can make a good case for that. Why do you think people want to change? Like, you're brought up to think Acts 2 is the beginning of the church, and then you run into somebody who gives you one of those companion Bibles, and you start reading the footnotes that Bollinger wrote, and you begin to think, oh, well, maybe there's some validity here.

Why do you think a guy would do that? What's that? He wants to make a name for himself. How can a guy get off-beam like that? How do you think that happens? Self-interest. Part of it. Maybe they would rather follow Peter or Paul than the Lord Jesus Christ. Ah, sure.

I mean, is it accurate for me to say, boy, we really need to study Paul? We really need to know what he had to say? We need to really focus in on what he has written? There's nothing wrong with that. But we're not to put him in the place of Christ. We're not to move him up the ladder, so to speak. You study Paul. Like I said, if you take Paul out of the New Testament, boy, you really missed a lot. So you can't put Paul up on the pedestal.

In 1 Corinthians, back up a little bit, Paul says, Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree. And that there are no divisions among you, but you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Cleo's people that there are quarrels among you. Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Cephas or Peter, I of Christ. Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? And were you baptized in the name of Paul?

Paul hits that issue dead on. Dead on. That the servants of Christ are the servants of Christ and not to be put in a deified position. which ultra-dispensationalists do with the Apostle Paul. They try to build the church around him. Problem is, it's not his church. It's Christ's church. It's his body. They're focusing on the tool and not the source. Very good. Everybody hear that? They're focusing on the tool and not the source.

When Vern gets back, we can tell him, we've switched our allegiance from Christ to you because you're such a good teacher. We're going to start a whole new church. A whole new dispensation. Yeah, we'll meet on Thursday instead of Sunday. It's a better day.

How do they handle identification? The ultra-dispensation, most of them handle it like the reformed people do. The ones that do approach it, and there are not many that do, are one nature people. And they will say that the crucifixion of Christ on the cross, and your inclusion in it, meant that your Adam got wiped out at the cross. That your sin nature literally died.

They forget that little word in Romans 6.10, 6.11. Reckon yourself indeed dead unto sin. The unto word, it must not be in their Bible.

And the word death means separation, not annihilation. When Carol King went home to be with the Lord, she didn't cease to exist, she just went somewhere else. She got separated from us and is home with the Lord. That's what death means. So on the cross of Christ, your sin nature didn't cease to exist, you just got separated from it. And it no longer has dominion over you. So that's one way they'll do it. Because they spiritualize the Word of God, they have a tough time fitting that in. They would say, well, gee, all of the Old Testament saints were retroactively crucified with Christ.

Well, I think you can take a look at our pal Abraham and prove that he probably wasn't by his behavior. He was declared righteous by God, but for the first 25 years after that, he wasn't exactly a stellar citizen, you know, selling his wife off to Pharaoh and other cool things, just because he was afraid. But at the same time, 40 years after that, he's willing to sacrifice his son without any question.

Shows growth. That's why people would say, well, gee, the good thief on the cross is in the body of Christ. They would say he is, because when you try to bring the Church and Israel together, there's no stopping point for Israel and no starting point for the Church. It's just a blend. We don't all end up in the same corral. We don't all go to heaven and walk around on golden streets. Some of us are in Christ. We're the bride. John the Baptist, is he in Christ? Is he in the body of Christ? He's not. Who thinks he is? No? He's not.

What did the Lord Jesus say about John the Baptist? How did he rate him in terms of human beings? He's the greatest man that ever lived on the earth. John the Baptist, the greatest man. Then what did he say about him? But he doesn't even come close to the least of those that are in Christ.

Interesting, huh? And John the Baptist even said of himself that he was a friend of the bridegroom. Would you say that? Would you say you're a friend of the bridegroom? What would you say you are? You're the bride. We had a wedding here a couple of weeks ago, right? You can't say that Adam, who is Aaron's brother, is a bride. He's a friend of the bridegroom. That's who John the Baptist is. The bride is unique. And that's who we are.

Paul just explained the mystery of the church that had existed before him. The mystery was already there, so that had to happen before Paul explained it. The Lord taught him in those three years in Arabia the specifics of what he was doing in this dispensation. By the way, stewardship is a better word than dispensation, because if you look at dispensation as the administration and the household of God, do we have a stewardship?

Yeah, we sure do. And our stewardship came from where? Who appointed us? Who were the forerunners in our dispensation? It was the apostles. And as they moved on, the responsibility passed down, passed down to us. We're stewards of this economy, which is going on right now in the household of God, which is the economy of grace. We're stewards of it. It's our responsibility. The faith and the beginning of the church, bottom of page four. There are a number of places in the New Testament from Acts onward that speak of the faith. Now, how many of you were in Hal's faith class or have read his faith notes? There's a difference between faith and the faith. Want to tell me what it is? There's a difference between the faith and your personal faith.

So how would you describe the faith? What is it? the total sum of what we believe. It's the whole expanded gospel of what we believe as Christians. See that? It's called the faith. So watch how that works. The faith as a body of common beliefs and teachings. That's what it means. It's a body of common teachings and beliefs.

Notice that the usage of the faith considered a body of teachings is called that in Acts 6, Acts 13, 14, and 16. That spans two of the times in which different groups of ultra-dispensationalists would call it a different church and therefore a different faith. If you're an Acts 9 guy, how do you justify in your mind what was going on between Acts 2 and Acts 9? What do they say was happening? Who were all those people that got saved? Who did they say were all those people that got saved?

They say it's another church. They say that it was a Jewish church and that there was another dispensation between Acts 2 and Acts 9. And then a whole new thing began again in Acts 9. That's what they say. Here's the problem that they have. Is it 2 Corinthians 5? And I'll start the verse, you finish it.

If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. So when the day of Pentecost, when 3,000 plus came into Christ, those Jewish guys, did they stay Jewish guys? No. The whole distinction of earthly everything went away. They now became sons of God. And so in Christ Jesus there's neither Jew or Gentile, bond or free, but all are one in Christ.

So what you are when you start to go in and what you are after you're in is different. And you can be anything starting in, but you're the same once you're in. Does that make sense? I didn't explain that very well. In other words, if you were a Gentile, and you are saved, and standing next to you is a person who is Jewish and they are saved. Once both of you are in Christ, you are the same. You are the same. Now you may think, you know, I am an Italian, or I am a Levite.

Well, okay, on the earth you are, but not in Christ you are not. The reality is that in Christ you are a new creature, a new creation, and that is really important. That's why, how can you dance around then with Acts 2, Acts 9, etc.? Did those people that got baptized in the body of Christ in Acts 2, did they not somehow become new creatures?

Did they somehow retain their Jewishness? No, they didn't. No, they didn't. I've heard the term completed Jew and I'm told that's not correct. Can you tell me why that's not correct? The question is, I've heard the term completed Jew. I don't think that's correct. Can you explain? The answer is no. Now I can explain.

What would a completed Jew be? What they mean is that now I'm really Jewish. In other words, all that God had intended for all time was to have these Jewish people become Christians. it is a covenant message. If being in Christ you become a new creation, what got completed about Judaism?

Nothing. Nothing. That's the thing that is hard for us to walk away from, I think, is that when you come into Christ, every distinction that characterized you on the earth before you became a believer, you are no longer identified by that distinction. The Messianic people want to keep the Jewish distinction. And along with that, they want you to live under the Mosaic Law. Well, how come we can't? Well, we'll set aside the ceremonial law, but you've still got to live the moral law.

Well, I say to them, good luck. When I was in the Air Force, one of my jobs was for the First Amendment rights. Messianic folks that had their balloon downstairs. And we built a, what we called, a combat zone. So that all of you that had different beliefs could be in one area. And they weren't fighting with people out in the corridor.

The thing was that the fellow that was in charge of the Messianic troops wasn't following him. He would come in and say, oh, he had a fresh business. was of the old Hebrew look. And he wore the long frock, and so on and so forth, and tried to maintain the law. How'd he do? Did as well as the rest of us.

The problem is if you buy the Jewish system of moral law, and if you buy the tenet that if you are under one law, you're under them all, And he's saying you're in big trouble because you don't have a remedy. No temple, no sacrifice. Well, I did it one time. I told him that if he were able to keep the law, that I would not make him go out and get his permit every month. And he said, I'll be back next month.

So the span of the two times two of the times in which the different groups of altered dispensations were called at a different church or therefore a different faith, Paul provided wonderfully unique insights into the faith, but did not initiate a new and different faith. Ephesians 4 or 5 even says that there is one faith. You okay with that? Not two, not three.

Books containing references to the faith and overlapping the Acts time period and afterwards, and include books by Paul and other New Testament authors. Yet, there's no evidence that any of those authors intended any different faith. The reference to the faith continue across some of the post-Acts times that are supposedly the beginning of another faith. And then Verne lists, you know, New Testament books that you can read that contain only the faith and not a new faith.

You can look at the chart that Hal Malloy put together that outlines of covenant theology and where they go off the rails. At the same time, just to reiterate and maybe make it as simple as possible, The interpretation of the Bible is according to the rules of good grammar in its historical and chronological context.

The second point is that God does not change and He is the same yesterday, today and forever. So it is God as a creator who has the flexibility to deal in diverse manners with mankind according to His determination. So God can very easily have the Jewish nation and the body of Christ, both of those groups of people, going into eternity. And both of them saved for all eternity.

Here's the bottom line with understanding dispensationalism. The number one issue is to deal with the Word of God literally. That's really important because you'll find people who want to make an issue out of ultra-dispensationalism or covenant theology. There's things that they have to sort of spiritualize to make it work. A dispensationalist will always look at the Bible and go into it and try to find out exactly what it says. And then try to find, in the context, if it all fits.

That's the most important part. And related to that is the distinction between Israel and the Church. It's really important. Because if you buy anything of the promises to Israel, you handicap yourself spiritually. If you buy all that Paul has for the church, then you can live totally in grace.

Question? I had a quick one. Please. I think the place I struggle is that, like if I could quote you perfectly, where you'll talk about everyone who's saved is either looking towards the cross or to the cross. And it's in like Abraham who believed and the thief on the cross who believed. Since it's faith that saves us, I don't understand why they aren't part of the body of Christ. Okay. Everybody hear the question?

Old Testament saints believe in something coming in the future or promises. The thief on the cross believed that something in the future, that day, he would be. But what do we believe in? We believe in completed facts, don't we? We never believe in something that's future. We have some hope about some things, but that are already in cement, like you're going to get a resurrected body.

Again, I go back to this issue. The value of your faith is in what you believe, not the fact that you believe. So if I believe that Christ died for me, was buried and resurrected, Abraham didn't believe that. He was never presented with that issue. Neither was John the Baptist. Neither was his thief on the cross. Even though he's hanging right next to him. Because the very resurrection part hadn't happened yet.

And so the belief of us being in the body of Christ, the message of the gospel, is that the work is already done. And that the Apostle Paul is the one that God said, I want you to explain to them what I'm going to do by putting them into Christ. The act of Christ had to be finished in order for there to be a body of Christ.

Do you think Abraham was saved? Absolutely. Will he be in heaven? Well, that's a discussion for another day. But yes, he will be. The simple answer is yes. But see, we're not going to be, quote unquote, in heaven. We're going to be in Christ. That's different. Any more questions?

In Romans 11 they talk about Gentiles being grafted into Israel, and it sounds like, and that's a tough one, I just don't see it. Yeah, what are the Gentiles grafted into? What's that? What are the Gentiles grafted into? What sounds like? Into Israel. That's what it sounds like. I think what they're grafted into is into the grace of God that they get included in.

Because if you were not a Jew before Christ, What chance did you have of being saved? You think God had a few guys hanging around in Peking, China, saving a few people? What did he do? The only way you got saved was Israel. That's the only way. And you think, well, gee, that's not fair. Look at the whole earth and all these millions of people, and only that little crummy nation down there in Palestine is going to get saved? Yes. Yes. So when you get grafted into Judea, supposedly you get grafted into what? What do you get grafted into? You get grafted into Christ. That's the difference.

You talk about old branches being torn away, and you too can also be torn away, and it sounds like you can lose your salvation. It sounds like it brings up all kinds of issues. Well, and here's the other thing about Romans 11. You have to understand Romans 9, 10, and 11 in the context of the three chapters.

They are in answer to the question, if God made all of these promises to the nation of Israel, yet you have done eight chapters of this Christian doctrine, is he going to just go back on what he said to the Jews? Because now he's replaced them with this new thing called the church? He's just decided the heck with those Jews? No, what he's done is he's put the Jews aside. And once the rapture happens, they'll be back in focus again. And you have to understand Romans 9, 10, and 11 in that context. Because he's not talking about Christianity there.

He's talking about the Jewish nation. He has an eternal covenant with Israel. Yeah, he does. He does. Okay, let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the freedom we have to come together and discuss, and we thank you for the Spirit who teaches us. Thank you. We pray in your Son's name. Amen.