The Daily Word of Righteousness

We Christians Do Not Understand the Gospel!, #3

Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. (Galatians 3:16)

And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Galatians 3:29)

To those who would claim the Jews on the earth would be an integral part of the Body of Christ and would have the Holy Spirit when they set up the so-called "earthly kingdom," we answer that the one Seed of Abraham would then be two, in spite of the express statements of the Apostle Paul to the contrary. There is no scriptural basis for two kingdoms—a spiritual, heavenly kingdom and an earthly kingdom based on physical race.

In addition (in the two-kingdom doctrine) there is the problem of what to do with people who are not one hundred percent Jewish. Are they in a Gentile Church? Would Paul and Peter be in the Gentile Church or with the Jews on the earth? What about the original Christian Church in the city of Jerusalem, all Jews, led by the Apostle James? Would they be in the heavenly Gentile Bride or part of a so-called Jewish kingdom on the earth?

Another error in Christian thinking is that there has been a great change from the Old Testament in the New. It is supposed that while the Old Testament speaks of the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth, the New Testament refers to the bringing of "saved" individuals to Heaven to live there in a mansion. This is hardly the case. The New Testament flows from the Old and is an integral aspect of the Old. The Old Testament presents the forms of the Judaic-Christian salvation. The New Testament presents the life and meaning of the same forms. The Old Testament describes the sin offering. The New Testament reveals the fulfillment of the sin offering in our Lord Jesus on the cross of Calvary.

If the New Testament is the continuation of the Old, then we would expect the writers of the New Testament to continue with a discussion of the Kingdom of God, not with some new plan in which believers are brought to Heaven to live forever. The New Testament is in fact a further revelation of the same kingdom described in the Old Testament.

There are "four horsemen" that have infiltrated Christian Christian thinking. They are humanism, Gnosticism, antinomianism, and Dispensationalism. These four philosophies account for the errors we have mentioned above.

Humanism stresses the rights of people and that man is his own God.

Gnosticism emphasizes the evil of the material world and points us toward the spirit realm, which is held to be pure.

Antinomianism accounts for the teaching that if we believe in the truths concerning Christ we will live in God's favor whether or not we live a righteous life.

Dispensationalism cuts in half the one Kingdom of God by separating the Christian Church from physical Israel. Dispensationalism has added the destructive doctrine that prior to the great tribulation all Christian believers will we caught up to Heaven so as not to be harmed by Antichrist.

Until these four horsemen are driven from Christian thinking the people will be unable to understand the Old Testament as well as the New Testament.

To be continued.