The Gospel of Jerusalem: by S Jones

THE GOSPEL OF JERUSALEM

Dec 19, 2018 by Dr. Stephen Jones

https://gods-kingdom-ministries.net/daily-weblogs/2018/12-2018/the-gospel-of-jerusalem/

When Scripture talks about the Bride of Christ, some say this is the church, while others say it is Israel. Those who say it is Israel are divided according to who they think Israel is.

Isaiah 62:4-6 addresses Jerusalem as a bride, saying,

⁴ It will no longer be said to you, “Forsaken,” nor to your land will it any longer be said, “Desolate,” but you will be called [Hephzibah] “My delight is in her,” and your land, [Beulah] “Married;” For the Lord delights in you, and to Him your land will be married. ⁵ For as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will marry you; and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you. ⁶ On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen…

This prophecy comes in the context of the restoration of the house of Israel having Jerusalem as its unified capital. Isaiah himself lived to see the exile of Israel to Assyria (Isaiah 38, 39), which in turn occurred 210 years after Israel and Judah were divided. But the prophet foresaw the reunification of Israel and Judah under the Messiah with Jerusalem as its capital.

Most people interpret this to mean that the Jewish nation that is today known as Israel is fulfilling this prophecy. Most fail to see the difference between Israel and Judah. They also interpret these names as biological references, rather than seeing these nations as legal entities. As I have shown in recent weblogs, the Israelites were taken to Assyria, while the house of Judah (“Jews”) escaped that captivity and remained in the land for more than another century before being taken temporarily to Babylon.

Two Jerusalem Brides

The key to understanding is first to know that Jerusalem is more than one city. The Hebrew word is Ierushalayim, which literally means “Two Jerusalems.” Hebrew has plurals (“im”) and duals (ayim). Ierushalayim is a dual, which means “two.” The rabbis in the past could never figure out why, but the apostles in the New Testament understood it to mean that there was an earthly city and a heavenly city.

The Old Testament prophets never distinguish between the two. Both cities are interwoven in their prophecies, and it requires discernment to know which city is being referenced in any given prophecy. Galatians 4:25, 26 shows that Paul understood this clearly. Revelation 21 describes the heavenly city while using passages from Isaiah about “Jerusalem.” It is clear from this that John also understood the difference between the two cities of Jerusalem.

So in Revelation 21:2 says,

² And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.

She is “the bride, the wife of the Lamb,” a reference to Jesus Christ (Revelation 21:9). Jesus’s wife is not the earthly Jerusalem; His wife is the “new Jerusalem.”

Yet the Bible story shows that the Old Covenant was the marriage ceremony where God (Christ) married Hagar, a bondwoman. That marriage ended in divorce (Jeremiah 3:8), and the new marriage, prophesied in the book of Revelation and elsewhere, is Christ’s marriage to a New Covenant bride, known prophetically as "Sarah.” Only Sarah can bring forth the heirs of the Kingdom.

The point is that the bride is Jerusalem, but we should know that in the big picture, there are two brides, each with her own marriage ceremony (covenant). Those two brides are yet in the world, existing side by side as groups of people, and yet one has already been divorced.

Casting out the Bondwoman Bride

The Old Covenant bride was “cast out” long ago in order to make room for the New Covenant bride. God will never again marry a bondwoman, yet there are many individuals within that Old Covenant bride (a company of people) who insist that Hagar is the true bride of Christ. They want Hagar to be the bride, because those individuals are her children, and they love their mama.

Paul makes it clear that Hagar and her children must be cast out (Galatians 4:30) in order to establish the calling of Sarah in Genesis 17:15, 16. Not many truly understand this, partly because the Dispensationalists re-instated Hagar as the bride of Christ by making the earthly city the mother of the Kingdom and by honoring fleshly people (unbelieving Jews) as chosen people.

In doing so, the Dispensationalists showed their love for their mother Hagar, and so most of the evangelical and Pentecostal churches today are blatant advocates of Hagar. The situation is comparable to the household of Abraham while he had two wives in his house and two sons that were in contention as heirs of the birthright.

At some point in history, a lawful decision or verdict must be decreed, declaring one or the other to be the heir. In Abraham’s time, this occurred when he sent Hagar and Ishmael away (Genesis 21:10-12). Abraham was a type of Christ (having two brides). Christ then came and cast out Hagar in a greater fulfillment of the word to Abraham. The separation between the two cities is obvious by reading the New Testament, and Paul gives his commentary in Galatians 4.

Paul himself had persecuted the church before his conversion (Galatians 1:13, 14), and his testimony admits that he had been an Ishmael at that time of his life. Even as Ishmael had persecuted Isaac (Galatians 4:29), so also had he persecuted the church—which, presumably was Isaac. The problem was that the church was starting to revert back to Judaism, and this was the beginning of the Christian reversion to being Ishmael, son of Hagar. Paul’s gospel was designed to warn the church against that tendency.

Reclaiming Hagar

The Dispensationalists in the 1850’s cast aside all restraint and fully pushed to make Hagar the mother of the church and the Kingdom. They did precisely what Paul warned against in his gospel to the Galatians. When Pat Boone converted to Judaism in the late 1960’s, after being taught Christian Zionism by these Dispensationalists, it began a wave of conversions. In fact, far more Christians converted to Judaism than Jews were converted to Christ.

If he and others had understood Paul’s gospel, they never would have been fooled into becoming Jews (by conversion). Yet the root problem was in their misunderstanding of the two covenants. The root problem was in thinking that a person is saved by his own vow, promise, or decision, for that is the Old Covenant method of salvation (which always fails). When someone says, “I got saved when I decided to follow Jesus,” it is the equivalent of Israel’s vow at Mount Horeb, where they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do” (Exodus 19:8).

When men are saved by the power of their own will, it is an Old Covenant attempt to be saved by the flesh. No man’s vow can save him unless he is able to fulfill his vow and be fully obedient. But the moment he sins after making that vow, his covenant is broken and is immediately null and void. He must then return to the altar and be saved again—and again. This must be repeated, as with the animal sacrifices, because it is based on the will of man. But John 1:13 says,

¹³ who were born [begotten] not of blood [i.e., bloodline], nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

New Covenant salvation is based upon the promise of God (Galatians 4:28), and New Covenant faith is the ability to believe that “what He has promised, He was able also to perform” (Romans 4:21). That is the faith of Abraham.

Those who claim Hagar as their mother are blind to the promise of God. They turn the promise into a statement of intent that is effective only if man himself gets involved with his own will of the flesh. God’s promise, however, did not depend upon man’s compliance. God’s promise was to make it happen. God took the responsibility upon Himself to make it happen—not merely to give man opportunity to make it happen.

Reclaiming the Sarah Bride

The New Covenant is a foreign doctrine to most Christians today. Having claimed Hagar as their mother, they have been blinded to the truth of “the restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21). They believe that most of humanity will be lost, except for those few who have been saved through their Old Covenant decision.

The truth is that God “will have all men to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4 KJV). At the Great White Throne, every knee will bow, and every tongue will profess Christ (Philippians 2:10, 11). Many will be judged, of course, so that they have time to mature spiritually and learn obedience (Isaiah 26:9). In the end, however, all things that were created will be put under the dominion (“feet”) of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:28; Colossians 1:16, 20), so that God may be “all in all.”

Because the outcome is based on God’s will and promise, rather than upon the will of man and his broken promises, God will have total victory in the end. This does not mean that man’s will is set aside or that any man will be saved apart from submitting his will to God’s will. Far from it. No man will be saved UNTIL he has submitted himself under the feet of Jesus Christ.

The New Covenant only ensures that God will win and that all will indeed bow their knees and profess Jesus as their Lord. The process, however, involves time, and people will be saved at different points in time. In the present age, only a few (the remnant of grace) have submitted to Christ and have been begotten by the seed of the word. In the age to come (the thousand years of the Tabernacles Age), many more will see the light, as the Stone Kingdom grows.

Then comes the Great White Throne, where all the dead are raised and are summoned to appear before the judgment seat of Christ. There all truth will be known to all, and they will then bow their knees. In other words, they will become believers in Christ and be filled with the Spirit. They will experience Passover (justification) and Pentecost (sanctification), but that last age of the baptism of fire will be necessary to bring these new believers into spiritual maturity.

During that final age, all flesh will disavow Hagar and claim Sarah as their mother. To put it another way, all flesh will become part of the Hephzibah bride of Christ, which is not the old Jerusalem but the new. John says that "the holy city" is the "new Jerusalem" (Revelation 21:2). By claiming this new mother, they will follow the pattern of the apostle Paul in his conversion from being a son of the earthly Jerusalem to a son of the heavenly Jerusalem.

This is not a matter of biological or genetic change. It is a legal matter. You are who you claim to be, not necessarily by your words but by your beliefs and actions. Hence, Paul was able to change his mother by believing the promise of God in the Abrahamic manner. This is the same pattern that all mankind will follow before the end of time as we know it.

In the end, at the Creation Jubilee (after 49,000 years of Adamic history), all debts will be cancelled, and all will return to the inheritance that they lost when Adam sinned.

Dispensational Nonsense

DISPENSATIONAL NONSENSE

11-27-2018 Original date May 14, 2007

Many years ago, when I was young, I read a book by Clarence Larkin called Dispensational Truth without realizing until many years later, just how far from the truth it was.

Dispensationalism is the teaching that attempts to divide time into various ages, each of which has a different plan by which God deals with mankind. For example, from Moses to Christ was the so-called "Age of Law," in which there was no grace. Conversely, after the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ we supposedly entered into the "Age of Grace," in which the law was supposedly put aside (some say it was nailed to the Cross.

Salvation: Faith vs Works  https://freedomfromdelusion.blogspot.com/2018/08/salvation-faith-vs-works.html

Further, this view taught--and still teaches--that the coming Age will be that of a Jewish Kingdom, which will be administered by Jewish law, including the re-instatement of animal sacrifices within a rebuilt temple. Thus, the second coming of Christ will see a very Jewish Messiah--not one which the Jews will accept for who He is, but rather a Messiah that will be acceptable to Judaism.

This is rather interesting, because Jesus was nothing like this in His first appearance, nor were His views the least bit acceptable to the chief priests. He came, not as a great miracle-working general to overthrow the Romans, but as a humble servant who loved Romans as much as He loved Jews.

But Dispensationalism teaches that Christ came the FIRST time as a meek Lamb, but watch out for Him when He comes the SECOND time as a raging Lion! In other words, He will be like a different Person in His second coming.

The underlying destructiveness of Dispensational thought is that it destroys the unity of Scripture and establishes two different standards of measure in the world, along with two different plans of salvation. First, it destroys the unity between the Old and New Scriptures rather than viewing it as a single Book with a progressive unfolding of God’s divine plan.  Second, it teaches that Grace is a temporary interlude that allows a few "Gentiles" a window of opportunity to be saved apart from animal sacrifices.  Third, it demands a reversion back to Judaism and to a very Jewish Kingdom in which God has preferential treatment of certain people based upon either their genealogy or their religion.

The "Age of Grace," then, is seen as a temporary respite from an Old Testament God, who is pictured as a vengeful, stern Judge of humanity. It is a temporary respite in which the "better" covenant, "better" sacrifices, "better" priesthood, "better promises" are granted until we are to revert back to those Old Testament practices which are WORSE. This violates the whole spirit of the book of Hebrews--which, I might add, was written to HEBREW PEOPLE.

And so, Dispensationalism has established the mind-set that Jews are saved by the law, while the "Gentiles" are saved by grace. This "Dual Covenant Theology" is being espoused by a number of preachers, though some of them (like John Hagee) actually deny it. They deny it, while at the same time affirming that Jews are in a Covenant relationship with God apart from Christ. What Covenant is that? Obviously, it can only be the Old Covenant, since it can hardly be said that adherents to Judaism are under the New Covenant.

Such people are caught in a rather awkward position, trying to maintain that Jews are already saved apart from Christ, while still trying to preach Christ to them. So they have come to the middle position, saying that while it would be BETTER for Jews to accept Christ, it is not necessary for them to do so. For this reason, many Christians are shutting down their missions to the Jews, saying that it is unnecessary to preach Christ to them. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has done the same, though this is not yet the official Vatican position. (The Vatican needs a little more time to let the view become more popular before it makes this official.)

Dispensationalism repairs the middle wall of partition (division) that Jesus tore down by His teaching. The Jews had built a wall in the temple to allow only the Jewish men to enter. This was to indicate that all others, including Jewish women, had to remain at arm's length from God. It showed that only Jewish men were allowed to have a direct relationship with God, and all others had to have an indirect relationship with Him. But Ephesians 2:14 says,

"For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one, and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall."

Dispensationalism rebuilds this wall and teaches that Jews are more loved and holier than non-Jews. It puts non-Jews in subjection to Jews in a very Jewish Kingdom. Furthermore, even ordinary Jews are put under those Jews whose names are Cohen, Kagan, or other forms of that name, for they are said to be descendants of the original Levitical priests. Gone is the priesthood of the believer.

For the life of me, I cannot see why any non-Jew would desire to see Christ's second coming. Do they really want to live life in subjection to Jewish leaders who have proven their character by their Zionist practices against the Palestinians?? Do they not know that this is how they will treat Christians in the age to come--if Dispensationalism were true?

Dispensationalism seeks to reinstate Hagar and Ishmael as the inheritor of the promises. Paul tells us clearly in Gal. 4:25 that "this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children."

Dispensationalism seeks to re-establish the Old Covenant along with rabbinic Judaism, having the old Jerusalem as the Capitol of the Kingdom. They reject the Apostle Paul's writings, or at least relegate him to the present "Age of Grace." They forgive his error on the grounds that he had a ministry to the "Gentiles," which made his message temporary and inferior. Once Christ returns the second time, Jerusalem was somehow to be transformed from Hagar to Sarah. The Old Jerusalem will suddenly be reborn into the New Jerusalem. The Ishmaelites of Judaism will suddenly become Isaac, while still retaining all the Ishmaelite bondages of Judaism. A rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, which God forsook "as Shiloh" (Jer. 7:14) will be reinhabited by the Spirit of God--a violation of His own Word.

The Spirit of God left the temple of Solomon according to Ezekiel.  It was never in the 2^nd temple nor was it in Herod’s upgraded version.

The Word of God is an acceptable casualty to Dispensationalism. But for those of us who actually believe the Bible and who are not blinded by Zionist Judaism, we believe that Jews have to repent and be saved in the same manner as the rest of us.

We believe with Peter that there is only one name under heaven by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).

We have no double standard, but believe with Moses that there was to be one law for all the people, whether Israelites or foreigners (Num. 15:16).

We do not believe that grace was absent in the Old Testament, nor do we believe that the law is irrelevant after the Cross.

We do not believe that the blood of Christ was limited to an interim "Age of Grace" until animal sacrifices could be reinstated in the end.

We do not believe that the presence of God will be removed from the temple of our bodies in order to inhabit a rebuilt physical temple in Jerusalem--or anywhere else for that matter.

We do not believe that the Old Covenant will replace the New Covenant in the Kingdom Age to come.

Dispensationalism is the New Replacement Theology. Such replacement theology is totally unacceptable and is rank heresy. It has no business being taught anywhere in Christian pulpits, because it entirely undermines the cross, the blood of Christ, and the entire purpose for Christ's coming. This is the great lawlessness that Jesus warned us about in Matt. 24:10-13 and the apostasy which Paul warned about in 1 Tim. 4:1.

  Did the early church contain any hint of dispensational reasoning?  NO.  Did the early reformers (with a personal Bible in hand) claim the Revelation is a roadmap of a tribulation period?  NO, they considered it for what it is.  A prophetic history of the Church beginning at the time of John.

The prominent groundbreaker of dispensational theology is the Scofield Reference Bible first appearing in 1909 and revised in 1917.  It is said this Bible with it’s unique (at the time) reference system was financed and encouraged by Jewish bankers living in England, to enhance and further their goal of convincing the Christian church of their self-conceived “chosen people” status in light of their upcoming plan to retake Palestine which became the state of Israel in 1948.

Prior to its popularization by the Scofield Bible, the roots of Dispensational Theology are traceable to John Nelson Darby and the Plymouth Brethren group within England.  Darby’s teaching has become enshrined in the Scofield Reference Bible, the most popular of all reference bibles.  Dispensational Theology has been refined to some extent and tenaciously defended by Dallas Theological Seminary founded by Lewis Sperry Chafer.

 

During the seventh year of Artaxerxes I, Ezra was sent to offer sacrifices at the rebuilt Temple (Ezra 7: 7). This was done by authority of the edict of Artaxerxes I.  At that time, Ezra performed the final rite of cleansing in Jerusalem, which allowed Daniel’s 70 weeks to begin the countdown toward the work of Jesus on the Cross.  Daniel’s 70th week extended from 26 to 33 A.D. Jesus’ ministry began precisely in the midst of that week, in the fall of 29 A.D., with His baptism on the Day of Atonement. The crucifixion occurred at the end of the week, in the spring of 33 A.D., which was precisely 490 years after Ezra began his journey to Jerusalem. The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ signaled the end of the 70 weeks.  There may be some intense tribulation within the next few years, but there is no future week of seven years.

Further Ideas & Comments

THE SINNER”S PRAYER – No Author

http://www.bible.ca/g-sinners-prayer.htm

No one in the Bible ever prayed for their initial salvation. They did however believe, repent, confess Jesus and be immersed in water for the forgiveness of their sins. The sinner’s prayer is an innovation that thwarts God's plan of salvation.

Hundreds of millions hold to a belief system and salvation practice that no one had ever held until relatively recently. The notion that one can pray Jesus into his or her heart and that baptism is merely an outward sign are actually late developments. The prayer itself dates to the Billy Sunday era; however, the basis for talking in prayer for salvation goes back a few hundred years.

Consider the following appeal:

"Just accept Christ into your heart through prayer and he'll receive you. It doesn't matter what church you belong to or if you ever do good works. You'll be born again at the moment you receive Christ. He's at the door knocking. You don't even have to change bad habits, just trust Christ as Savior. God loves you and forgives you unconditionally. Anyone out there can be saved if they ... Accept Christ, now! Let us pray for Christ to now come into your heart."

The fact that John Nelson Darby invented the pre-tribulation rapture doctrine around 1830 AD is unquestionably true. All attempts to find evidence of this wild doctrine before 1830 have failed.

All premillennialists, rapturists and dispensationalists alive today believe the Bible reveals the general era of when Christ will return. The date setters of the 1800's (Seventh-day Adventists who are date setting premillennialists who reject the rapture, Jehovah's Witnesses who have set many dates) based their predictions upon speculative arrangements of numbers and chronologies in the Bible. Today's date setters without exception wrongly believe that Israel gaining state hood in 1948 fulfilled Bible prophecy and that Christ would return within one generation.

Most of the TV preachers who promote rapture and/or "date set" all wrongly believe they are a prophet of God with special illumination. Pentecostals believe they are inspired directly from the Holy Spirit as modern day prophets. Baptists believe they are illuminated with guidance from the Holy Spirit through the Calvinist doctrine of Irresistible grace.

Darby noted that the doctrine "popped into his head" in 1830 AD. Before this, no one had ever heard of a secret rapture doctrine.

Modern influences of Darby include Dallas Theological Seminary, Bob Jones University, Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye, Jack Van Impe and Harold Camping, the Scofield Reference Bible.

"When the theory of a secret coming of Christ was first brought forward (about the year 1832), it was adopted with eagerness; it suited certain preconceived opinions.

The Dallas Theological Seminary and Bob Jones University have been the centers of propagation of false doctrine of the Rapture.

John Nelson Darby is regarded by many as the father of premillennial dispensationalism and the most influential figure in the development of its prodigy, i.e. Christian Zionism