Bible Backgrounds/Church History 2012
Vern Peterman · Dec 2, 2012
Bible Bkgds/Church History, No. 47
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492633637382

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

The following ones will be Christian foundations in the American colonies. Ever hear the idea that America is a Christian nation? We'll be taking a look at that. We'll be taking a look at that. Today's Roman Catholic catechism, what's in it and why? I've studied the Roman Catholic catechism, which was edited by the current Pope when he had a different position. in fair amount of detail, and it's fascinating the things that you uncover in the Roman Catholic Catechism.

The birth of ancient heresies and modern cults. One of the things that's interesting is a great many of the modern cults have an ancient precursor. Jehovah's Witnesses have a teaching about God that's exactly the same as was presented by another false teacher back just a few centuries after Christ. The history of Christian music and worship. And so we'll be taking a look at that. Very fascinating, the history. Some of the things that we take for granted have not been so in earlier centuries. So anyway, we'll take a look at those things through the end of the month here. And then, so a genealogy of dispensationalism from ancient to modern times. Let me first start off, what's dispensationalism? Is that a disease or, you know? OK?

Yeah, one of the things we will take a look at before we're done here is, you know, you're talking about ages or periods. That is often how dispensations are looked at. Ultimately, a dispensation is a stewardship which has time as an element, actually secondary. A secondary element is time. The main idea is it's a stewardship, OK? It is a matter of something being entrusted So anyway, we'll take a look at that as we get through here. Dispensationalism, however, has been taken as periods of time. among a number of different people, whereas in fact, as we'll point out, it's a secondary element. The main idea is stewardship.

So we'll go through with the idea that periods of time is often been seen as a marker, and we'll see that in the slides here coming ahead. One of the things we pointed out, and we've used this chart here before, it's at the top of your handout, is different topics were addressed at different times in church history. One of the things that, for example, happened fairly early was the issues of what's in the canon of the New Testament. Why would that be something that would be addressed fairly early?

Yes, that's right. They needed to know, they needed to get that settled. In addition to that, it was illegal to have Christian scriptures in the Roman Empire until the year 312. And if you're going to die for something, which books are you going to die for? So it became not just an intellectual issue, but it became actually a life and death issue.

So what we see here is last things, the idea of what's the future, last things, is one of the last things to get settled, to get addressed. And so one of the things we'll find is, as we'll go through the history, but nobody is really studying these last things in a great deal of detail until recent centuries. The subject of last things also includes substantial issues in the approach to understanding how God views history. So we'll talk about that some more as well. This I have shown on page one, but it's actually on the bottom of page six. So take note of that. I wanted to have that page printed out in color so you could discern the different time periods and that sort of thing. So it's color coded.

The two primary approaches to the interpretation of scripture are literal and allegorical. We've presented this before, but this area of dispensationalism is an area where this is critical. We put the red box around the literal because that's the position that dispensationalists take.

We interpret scripture literally unless it is clearly an allegory. In, for example, the book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul has an allegory, but he calls it an allegory. That's different from taking something that isn't called an allegory and allegorizing it. The allegorical approach, which came about fairly early Actually, within a hundred years after the Apostle John wrote Revelation, allegorical interpretation, being forced on a passage, had already begun.

Now, here's an example. A literal example would be Christ's second coming will take place literally. Christ will actually come, right? When Christ comes to reign for a thousand years, and that thousand years is taken literally. It's six times in Revelation chapter 20. It's said to be a thousand years. So we have several references there, including the Revelation 19 and 20. The allegorical examples would be these, and there's more than one.

But one of them would be Christ's second coming refers to his coming into the hearts and minds of those in the church, reigning through the church. So his second coming is when he comes into the hearts and minds of people who believe. That would be an allegorical interpretation. Another one, and it has great popularity among some, is Christ came already in 70 AD in judgment against the Jews.

And that frequently goes along with the teaching, God hates the Jews. And if you're a good Christian, you will too. God has rejected them. Essential elements of classical dispensational teaching, Israel and the church are kept as distinct entities. Versus, or in contrast to, the church represents Israel, the church is spiritual Israel.

Those are terms that you might come across. Consistent literal interpretation of scripture versus the allegorical interpretation. Christ's second coming is when he comes into your heart, etc. The underlying purpose of God in history and the future is the glory of God versus the salvation of mankind or the kingdom of God. What we have in quotes there, salvation of mankind or kingdom of God, are typical of those who hold the allegorical interpretation. Okay, here's church history starting with the period of time of the Apostles. Here's Acts 1, 6-8.

So the disciples come together and they ask Jesus, they say, Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel? Now question, restoring the kingdom to Israel, did they mean that literally or allegorically? Literally, right? Are you who have sent us only into the people of Israel. This is Matthew chapter 10. He sent the disciples out two by two only to the people of Israel. Don't even go on a road that leads to the Gentiles. They're thinking that all this death and burial and resurrection stuff is just a real rabbit trail and now the real thing, restoring the kingdom to Israel, that's what's going to happen.

Right? Is now the time? And Jesus says, well, of course, right? No. He says, instead, you're going to receive the Holy Spirit and be my witnesses. And they're going, what? And then he says to them, after Christ had said these things, he was lifted up while they, the 11 disciples, remember, not including Judas, were looking on, and a cloud received him out of their sight. As they were gazing intently into the sky while he was going, behold, two men in white clothing, who were angels, stood beside them. They, the angels, also said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come in just the same way as you have watched him go into heaven." And so Zechariah 14 says that the Messiah will land with his feet on the Mount of Olives. Not only in the same way, but the same place. We'll come back. All right.

Now, from the time of the end of the apostolic period into 312, during the time when Christianity is illegal, what characterized the early church? And this is a quote from Philip Schaff. a reformed theologian, he did not, does not, whatever, believe in a 1,000 year literal millennial period. But even given that, he says, the most striking point in the eschatology of the Antonocene Age, that is the time before the Council of Nicaea, is the prominent, and that's called Kiliasm or Millenarianism. a widely current opinion of distinguished teachers such as Barnabas, and that's not referring to Barnabas in the New Testament, Papias, Justin, Papias is sometimes called Papias, and then Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Methodius, and Lactantius. So the idea that there's a literal millennium was very common in those who lived in the period right after the New Testament.

But that began to fade. Kiliasm. It means a thousand. They were called Kiliasts and it has nothing to do with killing. It just means a thousand. Belief in a thousand. In each case in which we have record, these held to a literal 1,000-year earthly reign of Christ. And we had the more complete chart in the handout a couple weeks ago. This is an excerpt from that chart. These all believed in a literal 1,000-year earthly reign of Christ. They were direct or second-generation disciples of the Apostle John.

And they all believed in a 1,000-year literal millennial kingdom. The typical understanding of Israel's place was at times distorted. That is, they believed in a 1,000-year millennium, but oftentimes what we see reflected in these same guys, a little confusion about the place of Israel.

A clear definition of future things is relatively recent. Justin Martyr, who we mentioned previously, held that there were four periods in God's plan. So here we have this time idea, right? Irenaeus, Tertullian, Victorinus, Methodius held similar views. So you had these guys who believed in a thousand year reign of Christ and also held to certain periods, key periods of time in God's plan. While holding to the setting aside and continuance of Israel as a people of God, Justin Martyr also saw the church's spiritual Israel inheriting its benefits. So there was already a sliding, even among these guys, and it got worse.

But none of the early church fathers were entirely clear and consistent regarding their interpreting scripture and future things. This is one thing is we will, especially here at Holly Hills, focus on how do we interpret scripture, and we'll put an emphasis on that. That's not done uniformly, and in the early church there was little attention paid to how do I properly interpret scripture.

Let's ask this question. You are likely aware that there are a number of prophecies about Christ's first coming. The fact that even Isaiah 53 talks about Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. Isaiah 53 makes reference to that. But that would be just for starters. Psalm 22 is also a prediction about Christ's crucifixion.

Now, given those things, were those prophecies in the Old Testament fulfilled literally or allegorically? Literally, right? So therefore, any other prophecies about the future, would you expect them, about Christ's second coming, would you expect them to be fulfilled literally or allegorically? Literally, right?

So it would make sense. It would seem odd to interpret things literally about Christ's first coming and then allegorically about his second coming. That would seem a little strange, wouldn't it? Anyway, yes. He's already coming? What do you mean? Well, just what I'm saying. Okay. He's on his way. Okay.

Well, there will be a time when the Father tells the son, just as the Jewish marriage practices would state, the father will tell the son, go get your bride. And that time hasn't occurred yet. The promise of his coming is certainly clear and certainly there in scripture. Another discernment to be made, and that is the rapture, the taking up, and some people will say, well, the rapture is not in the Bible. The Greek word is harpazo.

It's being caught up. The rapture is the Lord coming for us. The Lord's second coming is actually the Lord coming with us. The Lord coming for us to take us from the earth, the Lord coming with us to come back with him to rule and reign with him on the earth. And the Christ is coming. Look at that word is again. There are several things that the Lord did while he was here on earth.

Well, if you think about it though, we're seated with Christ in the heavenlies, positionally, now. You have a chart here on this handout. It's farther back in your handout. Let's see. I think it's the second to the last page. It provides more detail and documentation of the teachings on the early church fathers. You have that available if you wish to study it in more detail.

I'm not going to go through that detail now, but at least it's there in your handout. Now, the Epistle of Barnabas has what's called the Septu-Millennial view. Each of the six periods of time in Earth's history are 1,000 years long. God's day of rest is 1,000 years. This was the idea presented in the Epistle of Barnabas, which was not written by the biblical Barnabas. Different one. the millennium of Christ's reign on earth will be the last of these, you know, 1,000 year periods.

Which, by the way, also generated a lot of Y2K excitement. People holding to this because, okay, this is it, right? Didn't turn out, okay? But that's a view. Pardon? I'm sorry, what? No. I'm just saying that people held a view Yeah, people held that view, not that we believe it. This is a view out there that had time periods. In other words, there were different time periods in the Earth's history.

Okay, from 312 to 590, 312 being when Christianity was made legal, 590 being the time of Gregory, in my opinion, not that great. At any rate, the Pope Gregory, not so great. You had the imperial church, that is the church reigning through the Roman Empire. Christianity having gained political and military support of the Roman Empire, the church was becoming much more comfortable in the world, viewing the kingdom as already present in the form of the ruling, reigning, earthly church. Let's ask this question. Is the church earthly or heavenly? Heavenly.

So this by itself, aside from anything else, is an oops. It's a mistake. It's a degradation from the biblical view. Pre-millennial literal views of the Bible became increasingly under official suppression. That is, declarations, you know, you will not teach this. You will be punished for doing for teaching, rather, along this line. Since those views stood in opposition to the amillennial view, amillennial meaning no millennium, no literal millennium, of the politically and military established church which was seen as the kingdom. The kingdom, of course, is here's the church, we've got the Roman Empire, we're the official religion, we're the only allowed religion, Yeah, and if you don't like it, you know, a sword through you.

So anyway, then from 590 to 1517 during the time of 1517 would be Luther's starting the Reformation with his nailing his 95 theses on the door of church at Wittenberg. So almost a thousand year period of time. The impact of three teachings, the late imperial and medieval church taught the church replaces Israel, the church was the earthly kingdom, and that the events of Revelation 6-19 were taking place during the church age, all reinforced through allegorical interpretation. If you can get real foggy about how these things are interpreted, then we can most certainly make it fit.

These views taken together cause a great many to view the barbarian, Muslim, and Viking invasions, as well as the subsequent Black Plague epidemics, as judgments of God against the sins of the people. Why? Because since the Church replaces Israel, all those curses that are called down upon Israel if they don't obey the law? Well, then that applies to us, since we're under law, right?

That would be how it was viewed. I'm not presenting it as that's the truth. I'm just telling you how it's viewed. They also had a Y1K panic. Just like we had a Y2K panic, they had a Y1K panic where people went out and sold things and put on white robes and stood on mountaintops and things like that. And they got cold. Anyway.

Now, then there was around the year 1200, the spiritual Franciscans, based on the order founded by Francis of Assisi, put forth these end times teachings. One, they said that the Pope had become the great Antichrist. Isn't that interesting? Here's an official Catholic order that says the Pope is the Antichrist.

Secondly, Revelation chapters 2 and 3 are presented as successive periods in church history. And I give specifically the fellow Peter Olivi, 1248 to 1298, that presented this. This is often taught among dispensationalists now, some of whom I would say I respect them in a great many ways. I don't, however, embrace this teaching. What's interesting is the group that presented it.

And it's funny, everybody, no matter when they present it, and centuries of time have passed, right, since the year 1200. Everybody that's presented looks upon themselves as being in the Laodicean era. Everybody, including the ones who teach that now. We must certainly be in the Laodicean era. So they keep adjusting and adjusting and adjusting. My thought is, one, because of the origin of it, and two, because of the fact that it's so flexible and adjustable and everybody sees themselves as Laodicean, something's wrong with this picture.

Thirdly, the Bible doesn't say that those churches represent periods of time. In fact, when did all those churches, all seven of the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, when did they exist? All at the same time in the first century, right? At the end of the first century. Okay, next we have 1517, time of Martin Luther, to 1648, the end of the Thirty Years' War, the time of the Peace of Westphalia. One of the points we've made previously is what was new is the basis of authority, scripture, the basis of salvation certainly, and then personal Bible study and interpretation. That was new for the Reformation.

What was unchanged was politically and military aligned churches. Luther, he had political and military alignments. Calvin had political and military alignments. And certainly the Roman Catholic Church had political and military alignments and they fought and fought and fought and fought and fought. In some districts of what is now Germany, over half the population was killed. It was a horrific war. Now what happened, it was also along with that allegorical interpretation of much of scripture with Israel being replaced by the church. You have, and this is on top of page 6, the color sheet, the last one, Covenant Theology and Overview. This was put together by Hal Malloy about 10 years ago, or at least that's when it was revised. It was actually put together before that, revised about 10 years ago, and I think Sue Anderson put this together.

You also have instances, here's an English dramatist, John Bale, during this period of time, he wrote through plays rather than direct discourse in order to avoid confrontation. You see, if you say something directly, then you're really likely to get into trouble. But if you just put it into a play, then, well, that's a little harder to figure out, right? So that's how he avoided trouble, by putting it that way.

He portrayed seven periods of time in Earth history somewhat similar, to the idea of what we saw of the Epistle of Barnabas. Each of these periods ended in failure and was judged by God, with a remnant continuing into the next period. Baal saw the binding of Satan and defeat of the Antichrist's future. So these elements are things that we would say, well, OK, that's got some resemblance to the truth here.

Robert Pont. Pont was a Scottish theologian. He was the son-in-law of John Knox, the Presbyterian church founder. John Knox went to see John Calvin in Geneva and then went back to Scotland and essentially stirred up a civil war in which they pitched out the Roman Catholic leader and established the Presbyterian church there. Anyway, Pont, who was John Knox's son-in-law, saw the Jews as having a specific history and future based on the weeks of years in Daniel 9, 24, 27. When we taught through the book of Revelation a couple years back, taught on Daniel 9, 24 through 27 on one particular Sunday, we went through that passage. Pont's six time periods of earth history were creation to Noah, Noah to Abraham, Abraham to Solomon, Solomon to Christ, Christ to 1056, 1056 to the end of the millennial kingdom.

Now, we would look at that and say, well, we wouldn't quite agree with all that. But nonetheless, the idea parallels what a number of dispensationalists would believe. Hugh Broughton, he was a Puritan. He pictured five periods from Adam to Christ. He studied and taught Hebrew, had an intense desire to see the Jews come to Christ. He presented Daniel as laying out the future of the Jews and envisioned the Jews coming to Christ in the future. So interesting, he had quite a focus on the Jews and looked upon it as the Jews do have a future and they will come to Christ.

His date for the Lord's return in 2072 was very unpopular. We will see. Some of us might even be around to see. We'll see. Thomas Brightman. While Brightman held to views we would likely not embrace, he did foresee a coming Jewish nation and kingdom distinct from the church.

So it wasn't just the church replaces Israel theology, but the Jews have a future and so does the church. Joseph Mead, and this is one of the inside pages from his book, he taught the conversion of the Jews, the literal return of Christ, a 1,000 year millennial kingdom, and Daniel as the calendar of the Jews and Gentiles.

So those things would have some general agreement with the dispensational views now. All right, now in 1648 into the present, here's a broad outline. Isaac Watts, the hymn writer, was one who also had certain periods of time laid out. And so he would be one. John Darby would be another one in the early to middle 1800s. And then John Walvard would be an indicator of someone who has taught dispensationally and had an outspoken and leadership role in that regard.

These interpreted scripture literally so that Israel is Israel, the church is the church, and allegories are clearly allegories. Just like we mentioned here in Galatians 4 where Paul makes an allegory but says it's an allegory, declares it to be. So this is the broad timeline. John Darby here, we give more detail, formulated a defined dispensational and rapture teaching in combination with recognizing that the church's future and identity is distinct from Israel's future and identity.

So he saw that and stated that clearly and that wasn't all that he recognized but certainly one of the points he made. Darby came to the church where James Brooks was the pastor. So in 1870, James Brooks publishes The Lord Cometh, in contact with and influence from Darby. 1884, Sir Robert Anderson writes The Coming Prince. And so that is another publication that was very influential and dispensational in its view. 1909, the Schofield Reference Bible.

That's been edited by a group more recently, but that was when it was introduced. And it was very influential. One of the things that made the Schofield Reference Bible very accepted was there had been a prominent view called post-millennialism that said that things were just going to get better and better until Jesus comes. Well, World War I, really cut the legs out from underneath that. And so when this was around widely, people said, well, that view isn't right. So many people embraced the Schofield Reference Bible, which was among the few study Bibles that were available at the time. And then, now there's an earlier picture of Schofield. Schofield saw dispensations primarily as time periods. That's how he wrote about it, and that's how he defined it. And so I think you have that. towards the back of your hand out there.

Key events in the 19th and 20th century, John Darby came to the church where James Brooke, excuse me, go over here, 1924 Dallas Theological Seminary was founded by Lewis Barry Schaefer. Lewis Barry Schaefer died 1952 and that's when John Walvoord took over as president. I talked with John Walvert about that, and he said, things were a financial mess when he inherited things. And so there were some things he could have wished were done a little better. But nonetheless, there was some good, solid teaching. And then he was president until 1986. He passed away, I think, about close to 10 years ago. So then in the 1980s, that was the introduction about 30 years ago.

This year, Progressive Dispensationalism, Daryl Bock and Craig Blazing of Dallas Seminary published Progressive Dispensationalism. Those are the top two guys there you see in this. And then 1983, and Robert, and then, I couldn't find out how you pronounce that, but it looks like saucy, you know.

Talbot Theological Seminary publishes the case for Progressive Dispensationalism. I'm not sure how he pronounces that name, so it might be something else. I mean, I saw some reference to it. It might be pronounced as Toshay, but anyway. Now, here are some of the claims of progressive dispensationalism.

It denies the need for a consistent literal interpretation of scripture. You can allegorize sometimes. Secondly, some of this view claim that Christ is now reigning on David's throne, where Christ is seated at the Father's right hand. And next, progressive dispensationalism claims Israel and the church are not two separate peoples of God. And it claims that the church was indeed revealed in the Old Testament. And finally, progressive dispensationalism is now dominant at Dallas Theological Seminary and Moody Bible Institute. among other places.

Now, here is one of the points I made earlier. Aspects of a dispensation, which is a stewardship, that it is one entrusting something to another. These aspects are these. The one doing the entrusting. In the case of what is in many cases called a dispensation, the one doing the entrusting is God himself. The one entrusted, the steward. Who, for example, was the steward during the time of the worldwide flood recorded in the early chapters of Genesis? Noah. Noah was God's steward. God entrusted things to Noah. So there was a stewardship.

The title of the one entrusted. Sometimes there's a title and sometimes there isn't, but it is an aspect, one of the aspects of a stewardship. The character of the one entrusted. Someone who is entrusted with something needs to be faithful. The Apostle Paul makes that point. Someone who's given a stewardship, entrusted with something, needs to remain faithful to what he's been entrusted with. The work of the one entrusted.

What's their job? What is their assignment? What are they doing? So what was Noah doing? Just to pick that example. One is building a very large boat, which I'm sure was puzzling or worse to all the rest of the people. And that was one. What else was Noah doing? He was a preacher of righteousness. So he was both a preacher of righteousness and a boat builder. And then towards the end it was, get those animals on, right?

Okay. The arrangement or assignment of entrusting and time may be a part of these aspects. Okay. Time may be a part of these aspects. Was Christ given a stewardship? Yes, he was. Okay. Did it have a starting time and an ending time? Yes, it did. Okay.

His starting time was when he was born of Mary, or conceived actually you could say, conceived and then born of Mary, and then the ending time was when he ascended. So that was his stewardship here on earth in his first coming. So there was time as an element.

The principles of entrusting, in other words, we want you to do this, this, and this. We want you to do things this way. The Apostle Paul, for example, was entrusted with messages, letters, churches, different things. And there were principles he operated by. He operated with certain principles as he ministered, as he wrote. And principles are either a fundamental truth or the way things work, and sometimes both. The objective of the one entrusted. In other words, what are you aiming for? As Noah was a preacher of righteousness, What was he aiming for?

Save as many people as he could. That was his objective. How did he do? That was his objective, the fact that people didn't respond. It wasn't his, you know, fault. There's nothing in the Bible that says he somehow blew it in that regard. Nonetheless, that was his objective, is to save as many as he can. And very interesting, I think that's a part of God's grace. Even when God knows nobody's going to respond, he still puts somebody there to tell the truth?

Yes. Well, and here's the interesting thing is when you look at the various covenants that were there, the covenants may also be a stewardship. They may also be a stewardship. It's not always so, and if you look at it, there are different levels of responsibility. Here are the Jews, they were given a land covenant, right, regarding this land that they were going to go into, and yet, how'd they do? In the end, they didn't do so well with it. There was a great deal of responsibility and yet failure.

The covenant with Abraham, however, was very gracious. There wasn't, you know, you got to do this and this and this and this and this and keep all these rules. The covenant with Abraham had much less in the way of any kind of requirements of Abraham. Right. Yes, there was still a stewardship, but it just was much less involved and it was far more gracious. So that while there was a stewardship, there were things he needed to follow through on. Nonetheless, God was the one doing the giving. And finally, the domain entrusted.

What area of responsibility do you have? Here's the disciples, Jesus sends them out two by two, go only to the lost sheep at the house of Israel. The stewardship at that point in time is Israel. Then later, when Jesus is getting ready to ascend, what's the physical domain of the stewardship? He's handing off to them. You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

So the domain becomes much larger, a different domain under the church, than they had when he sent them out two by two. Thirdly, the call of those in the domain. What are you calling the people in that domain to do? Here the disciples were sent out two by two, only in Israel, giving out the gospel of the kingdom, not the gospel of substitution. They gave out the gospel of the kingdom, which they understood. They did not understand the gospel of substitution yet. So the call of those in the domain. What message are they being given? What are they being called to? So all those are elements. Time may be a part of some of these that we have there with the plus sign marked off.

This ultimately allows us to see lots of stewardships in the Bible, lots and lots of them. And so instead of arguing about how many dispensations are there, if we say a dispensation is a stewardship, and that's actually what the word points to, if a dispensation is a stewardship, there are a great many stewardships.

Yes. Now, let me think about that one. I'm going to have to think real hard about that. Yeah, well, it certainly has an ending time period, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. Is he being entrusted? Hmm. I have to think about that. I don't jump on the idea. Good question, though. What's that? What's that? Yes, he is being allowed, and he does have a limited period of time, right? And at the end of his time, he's going to the lake of fire. No question about it. He's going to get real toasty for a long time. OK, let's see. Hebrews 3, 1 through 6 is, I think, a key one.

See if you can identify some of these elements, some of those things that you see bulleted there. Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus the apostle and high priest of our confession. He was faithful, and notice here's this faithful characteristic, he was faithful to him who appointed him, who appointed Jesus, God, actually God the Father, who appointed him as Moses also was in all his house.

Oh, so you've got Jesus and Moses and they have different houses. Okay. For he has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses. So compared between the two, here's Moses who was Israel's great and here is Jesus worthy of more. Right? Okay. by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house." So the house is the domain. What was Moses' house that he worked on? The people of Israel was his house. That was his domain.

For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. Ultimately, God appoints himself steward of all things. God appoints himself steward of all things and then hands off, entrusts stewardship to others in varying regards. In this case, it's Christ and Moses being compared. But this statement we just saw says that God himself is the steward of everything.

Like Ephesians 1.10 says, God is managing all of history to the end that Christ, everything will be summed up in Christ. Now, verse 5, now Moses was faithful, see Jesus was faithful, now Moses was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later. But Christ was faithful as a son over his house whose house we are if we hold fast our confidence in the boast of our hope firm until the end.

Do you see in this Israel and the church being separate houses? Do you see one replacing the other? No, not at all. You don't see it at all. Yeah, what you see is one is identified, the other is identified, Moses was a steward, Christ was a steward, and interestingly in this idea, the domain of each was described as a house, and each one is called a builder.

Christ is additionally called, see earlier in verse 1, an apostle and a high priest. Apostle, high priest, and builder. Both of those were called faithful. So they're both called faithful, so that's the character of each. But each in a separate house, and each given a different stewardship.

If you're going to do it that way or that way, you're supposed to be faithful as well. There's a question here, and I would have to look at it, and one is, what kind of if is this? Is it an if that says if and it's assumed to be true? I'm not sure what the answer to that is at this point in time. Faithful. Yes. Yes. So I would have to look into that if to give you a little more insight there.

Why the appeal here? I mean he spent quite a bit of time talking about here's Christ and here's Moses and they each have a house and Moses was faithful and Christ is faithful. Why the appeal at the very last to holding fast our confidence and boast of our hope firm until the end? Why that appeal?

Yeah, the big theme of Hebrews, you've got the right point. The big theme of Hebrews is here are these Jews told to, you know, they're being thinking, I better go back to this Mosaic thing and notice whose house are we? We're in Christ's house. He has Moses as a separate house. Not replaced. Not go back to the old house. Stay in the house you're in. Right? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And looking at it, if Christ was faithful, why does it make sense for us to be faithful? Why does it make sense?

Because we're in Christ. Because Christ is in us. So we're in Christ, and Christ is in us. And we've been identified with Him, so whatever is true of Him positionally makes sense that that is true of us. And in our condition, that's what we're called to. We're called to live out our position in our daily condition. So this passage here is one where very clearly we see those aspects. The one entrusting, God. The one entrusted, Moses and Christ. The title of the one entrusted. Jesus is an apostle and a high priest and a builder. Moses called a builder. The character of the one entrusted, both of them faithful.

So we go down the list here. Now, is there anything in that verse that tells you that we really ought to try really hard to live by the law? No, because whose house are we in? We're in Christ's house. The law was for Moses' house. In Christ's work, in Christ's accomplishment, in the fact that we're in Him and the fact that He's in us, all our confidence is in Him. We are, after all, in Christ's house. We'll next look at the Christian Foundations of the American Colonies. Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Yeah. Steve? So, it said up here on your DVD, Progressive Dismutationalism.

It claims that the Church was indeed revealed in the Old Testament. So, it says Paul revealed it in the Indians. It says it's a mystery. That indicates that something new was revealed. Well, yeah, and what they'll do is look at passages that seem, essentially they're about Israel, but since they're starting to fog the distinction, they can say, well that points to the church. Since you've already got the distinction starting to get foggy, And I'll say, well, that points to the church too. Yeah, supposedly.

But the reality is, you're right, the word mystery is used of a truth not previously revealed, but now revealed. And that is in Colossians chapter 1, exactly the way the word mystery is defined in the book. is a truth not previously revealed, but now revealed. Therefore, since we have these mysteries, including the Church, then it doesn't make any sense that it was revealed in the Old Testament. Unless you start getting foggy about your distinction between Israel and the Church. Other thoughts, questions? Yes? I don't know specifically about Talbot. Talbot had some issues quite some time ago. Talbot is associated with Biola. That's where John MacArthur went. So yeah, yeah, and Biola. And they've got a bunch of issues.

One of them, for example, is they teach pretty widely the long age view of the earth, so that Genesis is not interpreted literally. I'm not sure how recent, although I'm quite certain that it's been around for several years at a minimum, and quite likely much longer. Yeah, yeah. That's certainly there now. How long that's been the case, I'm not sure. Yeah. Yes. Right. Different time periods. Yes.

Well, certainly because a lot of the stewardships have specific time periods in which they operate. But the time is not the definition of a stewardship. Time is an aspect of it. So that's why we make the distinction. in these bullets. Time may be part of these aspects.

Let's take, for instance, Christ will come again and the Father will have given him stewardship over the earth for a thousand years, right? And then after that, in the new heavens and the new earth, Christ will still have stewardship. His kingdom will never end, right? So given that, when does that stewardship end? It doesn't, right? Yeah, so it doesn't. And that would be my point.

Time may be an aspect of a stewardship, but it's not necessarily consistently so. And then plus, there are a great many stewardships when you begin to look at the different aspects of stewardship and begin to test that. Let's take, for instance, here is Joseph. He is a steward over Potiphar's house, right? That's a stewardship, right? And all those points could be looked upon as, okay, those are things fitting to Joseph as steward over Potiphar's house. He also even became a steward in the prison. the Bible describes, and when he was made second in command under Pharaoh, he was a steward again. So here, this is a stewardship.

What's interesting, who are the stewards over the local church? Yeah, you've got elders and deacons who are stewards over a local church. It's interesting that outside of Jerusalem, we don't know for sure the name of one single elder in the entire New Testament. Very interesting. Here they are. They're the ones that have the stewardship over the local churches, but not high profile, not big name. It's funny. Some pastors, the pastors are famous. You know, big names. That's not true in Scripture. The only one that we know that had that role, where we know the name, was James, Jesus' half-brother. For sure. Yeah.

So, that's a stewardship. Actually, Judas was given a stewardship. Was he not the treasurer for the disciples? Yeah, and it had time, a time that came to an end. So you can find stewardship all over the place. You can find them early on. Here's Adam. He's in the Garden of Eden. Did he have a stewardship? Yep. Yep. Eat of this, not this. Do this, not that. And here's this garden I've given you. It's yours. You have a stewardship. I've entrusted it to you. That was his stewardship. Didn't do so good with it, but anyway, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Still going to deal with Israel. By the way, who was the next steward after Moses? Joshua. Yeah.

So if you look at it, you can find stewardship all over the place. You can find them from the early chapters of Genesis, even the first two chapters of Genesis, you can find the stewardship there all the way to the last chapters of Revelation. Stewardships all over the place at lots of different levels. Yes?

Yeah, here's Joshua. Basically, a lot of things fall apart where the Jews go through bad cycles, right? And the Lord brings a judge in to restore them. And those judges had a stewardship for a time. And then, okay, now we're going to put in Saul. Did Saul, as a king, have a stewardship? Yes. And at the same time, there were also prophets, and there were also priests, and they each had stewardships. Stewardships left and right, all throughout the Bible. Dispensationalism, if we see it as stewardship, is very well founded because we can find that from the earliest chapters to the last chapters of the Bible. And that's the domain of the stewardship, the house, yes.

Well, that's where we would say that the ultimate is the glory of God. The ultimate is the glory of God. And in fact, did the law ever save anybody? The law did not save anybody. It only determined whether you got blessings or curses and whether you lived or died. Right? So the law was not to save anybody. It wasn't salvation.

How are people saved? back there out in the desert, saved by faith. So a person could be saved eternally and yet die under the law of Moses because you picked up some firewood. It was possible under the law of Moses to be saved eternally and yet be condemned to death because you picked up a piece of firewood.

Amazing. That's right. I might say, well, I'm going to die, but where am I going to spend eternity? I'm going to live eternally and it's not going to be in the lake of fire. Okay, we need to pray and let the people come in. Lord, we do thank you as we see these things. You are indeed the God of history. You are indeed directing all of history, managing, administering all of history to the end that everything will be summed up in Christ. as long as this earth remains and beyond it. And we thank you for that. Thank you for the gracious and wonderful place that we have in that plan. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.