Bible Survey. The Bible: The canon of Scripture & how it's to be interpreted

Okay, we have two topics that we're looking at here this morning. Essentially, before starting the Bible survey, we want to make sure that we've got the right Biblical perspective on God's Word in order to kind of set the stage for what we're going through here. Then the two things we're looking at is the canon of Scripture and how it's to be interpreted. So those two topics here today.

And let's just ask this question, what difference does it make, what books are included in the Bible. Suppose, for example, suppose I said, you know, we're really not sure about the book of Acts, let's just kind of cut that out. What's the problem with that? Or, on the other hand, suppose we said, you know, I've got a couple other books, actually in the book of Colossians, the Apostle Paul references the letter to Laodicea, which is not included, and suppose I've got a letter to Laodicea that shows up, and say, hey, let's put that in there too. So what happens if we drop books out and add books? What difference does it make?

Totally subjective. Totally subjective? OK. And why would you say that? Well, each person has their own perspective on what's valid and what's not. OK. So you have all kinds of variation from one person to the next. All right. What else are you thinking? Yeah. I try to include things for nefarious purposes. Ah, OK. In other words, if we say all scripture is inspired, then I'll just pitch this in as scripture 2, except that the motivation and purpose behind it is not a good one.

What else? You lose information if you take stuff. The Bible is not exhaustive, but it is the information that God intended to reveal to us. We cut something out, and all of a sudden you're missing something. And by the way, let's ask this question. Let's say we just sniffed out the book of Acts. When you get through with the Gospels, and you get to Romans, you're going to say what? How do we get there? Who is Paul? Right? You're not going to have the slightest idea. Who is this Paul guy? All of a sudden he shows up, speaking authoritatively, and do this and do that, and who is this guy? So the book of Acts, serves as a bridge between the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament. An important bridge. In fact, an essential bridge. We would be puzzled at half the rest of the books of the New Testament without that.

You always have the problem of there's men who did the deciding. And so you need as much men moved by the Holy Spirit making the canon as you had men inspired to write. In other words, the content of scripture is certainly a critical issue, but what is in the canon comes right along with that. Because Esdras and 1 and 2 Maccabees, Bell and the Dragon, all the Apocrypha, the Gospel according to Thomas, on and on and on.

We have the Apocrypha, which is largely Jewish writings of a kind of a Greek mindset. And then you have actually the Pseudepigrapha, another set of writings. And rule of thumb, just a round number, by the year 800, about 800 fake New Testament books were introduced. So by about the year 800, about 800 fake New Testament books were written. People writing, saying that they're Peter and Paul and Thomas and everything else. Gospel of Thomas is one that you may hear about.

And that book is just phenomenal. It's amazing that people consider it to be worthy of consideration. It has some little boy bumped into Jesus and so Jesus has him killed right there. Does that sound like Jesus? Not so much. A crazy book, basically nuts. And yet you have people trying to seriously consider it and discuss it. Yes.

So is that book of Thomas, is that Thomas the Doubter? Yeah, it's supposedly the Gospel of Thomas. The evidence is that it was written later in the second century, written under Gnostic influence, and Thomas had nothing to do with it. That's the evidence.

And yet people still will try to talk about it as if it ought to be considered seriously. And how about names like Bell and the Dragon? Hmmmm. There's a certain amount of lack of discernment, lack of care to attention and detail that gets involved with these.

So, let's take a look at this here. Canonization refers to a recognition of which documents were inspired and not the authoritative declaration of what was inspired. See the difference? We're recognizing what got inspired as opposed to just going around and making a pronouncement. Let me make a comparison.

When we select elders in the church, we are not declaring someone to be authoritative as an elder. We are recognizing whom God has gifted to be an elder and that's different. So the point is we're recognizing what God has done. As Paul said in Acts 20, the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. He is the one who makes elders and overseers and shepherds and not human beings. We're not declaring anything from a human standpoint, we're simply recognizing what God has done.

That's important here as we recognize the books of the Bible, and especially the New Testament. The Old Testament was rather set in place as to what was accepted. And so what you have there is this inset here has four links from God to us. Inspiration, which we talked about previously. Canonization, which is this morning's topic. and then transmission, the documents had to be transmitted and preserved such that we would receive or find them, and then translation. So there's those four stages in order to get the New Testament documents particularly into the form that we have them now. So inspiration, canonization, transmission, and translation.

The Old Testament, and we kind of address this in the middle of the page here, the Old Testament had already been set up and recognized, as here are the books that are included, by the end of the Old Testament era which is around 400 BC with Malachi, the last Old Testament prophet.

We have a quote here in the middle of the page From Josephus, writing towards the end of the New Testament era, from the time of Artaxerxes, moreover, until the present period, all occurrences have been written down, but they are not regarded as entitled to the like credit to those which precede them, because there was no certain succession of prophets. Fact has shown what confidence we place in our own writings. For although so many ages have passed away, no one has dared to add to them, nor to take anything from, nor to make alterations. And all Jews it is implanted, even from their birth, to regard them as being the instructions of God, and to abide steadfastly by them, and, if it be necessary, to die gladly for them.

And with the exception of things like 1st and 2nd Kings, 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Chronicles, that were divided just because of length into separate books, Josephus lists the Old Testament books just as we have them now. So, at any rate, various references in the New Testament to the books of Moses, the Law and the Prophets, and the Psalms were spoken of as if the books were well recognized. So here's Jesus in Matthew and in Luke, There being no discussions recorded in the New Testament debating the Old Testament books among the Pharisees nor questioning which books were meant. Up in the top paragraph it says, by the New Testament times, in that paragraph it says, Josephus writing before the end of the first century writing from a perspective that did not reflect the view of the minority Sadducees.

Okay, they were minority. Who had effectively been ended? Let me explain that. The main groups that you see discussed in the New Testament are the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Those are the two main groups. The Pharisees were the majority group and they were missionary. That is, they were the ones that spread Judaism on into other parts of the world even. When you talk about Jews that show up in the New Testament, here's Paul, he goes to Thessalonica and there's Jews there. It's the Pharisees that brought it there.

The Sadducees tend to hang around Jerusalem. And that group, among several different things and events, that group ended at 70 AD when the Romans came and attacked. The Sadducees were done. But the Pharisees, having spread all throughout the Roman Empire and beyond, and being missionary as they were, continued on.

As a matter of fact, when I met a little over a decade ago with a local Orthodox rabbi, His first introduction to me is, we are the Pharisees. We are the Pharisees. Very interesting introduction. He said, we carry the mantle of the Pharisees. We continue that on. So the Sadducees were ended. The last descendants of Esau, of any significant number, were ended at 70 AD.

The temple worship was ended. and has not resumed. And one more thing, I've spoken in the past about Hillel and Shammai being the two courts that you could go to for marriages and divorces. The court of Shammai was ended in 70 AD, so the court of Hillel is what continued. So several things, it was a huge disruption. So that's what I mean by it being, the Sadducees being ended. In 70 AD, that was the termination. It was a monumental shift in termination for Judaism.

Was a Pharisee somebody that got some sort of certification? How did he become one? What we covered sometime back in the Gospel of John is this, and that's that by New Testament times, and it started before, By New Testament times, there was a tradition regarding rabbis.

Most of those rabbis were of the Pharisees. You did have some were also from the Sadducees, but most of them were Pharisees. The rabbis had traditions, and a rabbi would have disciples. Gamaliel, who was Paul's rabbi, and who's quoted in the book of Acts, Gamaliel, who was Paul's rabbi, it is said outside of the Bible that he had about a thousand disciples over his lifetime. He was the grandson of Hillel, the one who began the court of Hillel.

About 150 rabbis were present in the New Testament era about the time of Christ. 150 rabbis at one time. So Jesus was considered a rabbi among these 150. The unusual thing about Jesus is we have no evidence that he was trained under another rabbi. And that was the usual thing. In other words, the typical thing was you would have a rabbi like Jesus.

And who are some other rabbis that we find in the New Testament? Who came to see Jesus at night? Here's Nicodemus, right? So you'd have Nicodemus be a rabbi. And by the way, if you're the head of a rabbinical school, One of the declarations was that you were born again. So here is Nicodemus, a rabbi, comes to Jesus and is kind of looking for, boy, you do some unusual things, and looking for insights.

The typical thing was you'd have traditions about, here's what it means to be a rabbi, and here's what it means to be a disciple. And those, by the time of Christ, were already well-established traditions. The fact is that Jesus followed some of those traditions and also startlingly, stunningly broke those traditions as well.

The rabbis would very frequently go around saying something like, take my yoke upon you. The rabbis would challenge people, unless you do this you can't be my disciple. So those kinds of statements from Jesus are just like the rest of the rabbis. No rabbi would dare to say, my father, because that implies a special relationship with the father.

What about the title itself of Pharisee? Where did that arise? The Pharisees and the Sadducees, the origins of both of those groups are subject to debate and discussion. The Essenes were another group, but they're more reclusive. They were also minority and ended like the Sadducees at 70 AD. The Romans came in and the Essenes had no defense and were just wiped out.

Usually we think of Pharisees as being strict interpreters and strict followers of the law. They considered themselves to be the ones who were really following after God. Yeah, and they were the culture heroes. Most of the people would say the Pharisees are the best of the best, you know.

And the Pharisees thought of themselves as the best of the best, which is why when Jesus would come and challenge them, they thought, The Messiah is obviously going to love us, right? So the Messiah is going to love us, and if Jesus comes here claiming to be the Messiah, well, he can't be the Messiah because he doesn't love us, right? So that's the situation. Now, we bring it up in terms of canon because of this.

The Essenes and the Pharisees recognized all the books of the Old Testament that we recognize. The Sadducees only recognized the first five books of the Old Testament, and in addition to that, they were also skeptical. They were skeptical. That is, here's miracles and angels and stuff like that, and they're not so sure about that. So only five books.

So here's Caiaphas, who is a Sadducee, interrogating Jesus. And he asks Jesus, are you the Christ, the Messiah? So what does Caiaphas believe about the Messiah? There isn't any such thing. He doesn't believe in the Messiah. So the question he's asking is sarcastic. It doesn't matter what Jesus answers, he doesn't believe it anyway. Are you the Messiah? Yes? Well, I don't believe there is one, so you're obviously a fake. Are you the Messiah? No? Well, I didn't believe there ever was one anyway. So no matter what Jesus answered, Caiaphas was going to take it skeptically. Yes?

This is a bit of a rabbit trail, but I think it's important for us as believers when we engage with the secular world and skeptics, that we listen for those suppositions. Don't answer a question that doesn't have an actual answer based on their worldview. Yeah, and I think we aim for the presuppositions. We need to zero in on it and make sure that that becomes evident.

Because what happens is most discussions of religion and politics and those kinds of things don't get at the worldview and don't get at the presuppositions. And so here's the Sadducees, their presupposition is, you know, we've got the five books of Moses, those are the only ones I believe and I'm not sure how much of that I believe. So the Sadducees are very skeptical and very much minimal.

The Athenians, who are not mentioned by name in the New Testament, The Essenes are the double predestination Calvinists of the time. And Jesus' only mention of it is in the Sermon on the Mount, where he says, you've heard, hate your enemy? Only the Essenes taught hate your enemy, because God has chosen some for salvation, and that's the Essenes, and everybody else is going to hell. So they were the double predestination Calvinists of their time. The Pharisees didn't believe in double predestination. The Sadducees didn't believe there was any resurrection at all. So they were the ultimate skeptics. This is all you've got. Do things here the way God wants them done. The way we Sadducees think, God wants them done, and that's it. Now, yes?

Do Muslims believe like in one of the books of the Bible, like Genesis or the first five? The Koran, and actually there's another book that's rarely mentioned, but it's the Hadith. The Koran and the Hadith are the two primary holy books of Muslims. And by the way, Muslims are deeply divided, more so than Christians. But their term for Jews and Christians, because Mohammed did have contact with both Jews and a strange Christian group, their term is that we are called the people of the book. That they look at the Bible, whether it's the Old Testament with the Jews or the Old Testament New, That's the book.

They interpret it differently. They talk about Issach. They write about Issach. That's the name for Jesus. They write about Mary. But they believe that it wasn't Jesus who was crucified on the cross. It was somebody else. It was a mistake. But they don't accept any of the books of the Bible? Not authoritatively. They try to go in and try to find some support for Islam in the pages of the Bible, but in the end, no. Yes, they'll go back to Abraham, and so what you have is Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all three of those will go back to Abraham. However, the way they go back is different.

When we read in Genesis, which is the Jewish version, who gets brought up to be presented and killed. You have Isaac presented to be brought up and killed, and at the last minute what happens is God stops, through an angel, God stops Abraham from killing Isaac and presents a ram there, and that is on Mount Moriah, which is where the Temple Mount is. And that that dome of the rock is over the rock that they believe is where this took place. However, they don't believe that it's Isaac that was presented. They believe it is Ishmael. All right, let's take a look at page two. As is apparent in the New Testament books, the canonizing activities regarding the New Testament books began even while the Apostles were on the scene. So the Apostles acted as kind of a living canon.

So here's selecting and verifying of contents, and so you have several different passages that are consistent with that. Another is the public reading of Scripture. When the Apostle John writes Revelation, he says, blessed are those who read, singular, and who hear, plural, the words of this book. Isn't that interesting? So there is a public reading that is a part of what the Apostles intended. The Apostle Paul writes to the Church at Corinth, and he talks about reading this at the church and at other nearby churches. So public reading is a part of what they do. There is also circulation. Take this and send it elsewhere. Here's the book of Revelation. Did it just stay with John? Or where did it get distributed? He wrote to seven churches, right? And so each of those churches got the message.

And I would suggest to you that they copied it. and went to each one so that you could take the time to look at it and study it. You got the determination of what was canon and what was not. Explicitly using repeatedly, and we brought it up in the book of Hebrew study just last week, the word, the word, the word. It's specific with a definite article each time in the passages we quoted there. Next, there was a quoting of New Testament scripture.

Here's 1 Timothy 5.18, Paul quoting from Luke 10.7. I think there are other instances, that's just one example. There is a chart in your handout, it's on the last part of it. It looks like this, and it has more detail than we'll go into now, but it gives you what various ones over time recognized as scripture.

Scripture was copied and collected. What's interesting is if we had no copies of the New Testament, I mean none, if we had no copies of the New Testament, the writers of those early centuries quoted the New Testament enough that we could assemble the entire New Testament from what they wrote in little comments and commentaries and things like that, all but less than a dozen verses. of the New Testament could be compiled from what others quoted of it. If we had zero copies, and we have, in fact, thousands of copies.

Yes? Okay, as you look down this chart, it looks interesting from the standpoint, I can understand why maybe James, Philemon, 2nd and 3rd John, I can see why those could possibly be. But if 1st Peter is accepted, why was 2nd Peter kind of hippie here? Yeah, some of the objections, at times a little hard to understand, but there were instances like that where Second Peter was somewhat objected to. I find them very consistent books. But as a matter of fact, there's a key series on growth.

2 Peter 3.18, but grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And how do you grow?

1 Peter 2.2, that long for the pure milk of the word that by it you may grow. Same word. So the means of growth is given. in one book and then the need to grow is given in the next one.

So to me they tie together very well. So do you think they're kind of questions maybe Peter didn't write 2 Peter? Yeah, some of them objected. Where you find a few that there were questions that some are thinking, well I'm not sure. But in the end it was settled, and what we have is what we have.

The addition of the Apocrypha didn't come until the Catholic Church adopted it in the middle 1500s as a reaction to the Reformation, called the Counter-Reformation. There were four criteria, middle of page two. Four criteria that were used to determine what is inspired and what ought to be can and what not. Those four are apostolicity, that is, was the book written by an apostle or an apostolic associate? And of course, what that means also was that the book originated during the apostolic era.

Which, by the way, the Gospel of Thomas doesn't qualify. Anything written second century or later is outside of the Apostolic Era. The Apostle John wrote Revelation, 95 AD, died the following year. And so if you have something written in subsequent centuries, in these fake New Testament books, that's when it happened. It's not in the apostolic era, so it's not apostolic. It wasn't written by an apostle or an apostolic associate. One of the terms we've used is the apostles either wrote all the New Testament books or they sponsored them. The next one is spirituality.

Will the contents of a given book of such a spiritual character is entitled to this rank? Or is it a cookbook? Is it just a medical book? Is it just full of a bunch of rules and laws and weird mythology? So spirituality, is it revealing New Testament truth consistent with the Apostles? And is it giving you spiritual insight consistent with the rest of Scripture, but also new revelation? The next one, universality, was the book universally received in the church. And of course you do have some where there's some question, but eventually those melt away. And the fourth one, does the book give evidence of being divinely inspired? How do you know if a book is divinely inspired? How do you know? One is, does it talk about that?

Here's Hebrews, where we don't know for certain who the author is, but here's Hebrews 4.12, the word of God, which by the way refers to repeatedly, is alive and powerful and pierces to the depth, the dividing line between soul and spirit.

Here's a book that addresses things deeply and talks about the impact. As we're going to see this morning, has some consistency with the Apostle Paul, even though it's a very different approach to the law. He says, we're not under law. And so he has the same thesis, but a very different approach to saying so. In other words, does it put the focus on God? And especially with these New Testament books where you get a separate question of canon.

Yes, just like one of them that emphasized miracles, the fashioning clay pigeons and then having them fly off. Yes, this is the Gospel of Thomas that you're referring to. Some of these things where they made a show of what you might call miraculous power of God, but it was just What shall we say? Things do impress you like a magic trick. Yeah, it was more of a magical trick. You know, here's the gospel of Thomas. Some boy bumps against Jesus and so Jesus kills him. Does that sound like Jesus? Not so much. Yes.

And also books like Enoch where spiritualism is really unrealistic and it actually takes away from faith and belief because it's talking about things that actually are not real or could not be real. And there's another book of wisdom, I can't remember which one it was, but I think it's the one that talks about the dragon and a lot of really weird stuff. Really strange stuff. First and second, Maccabees has something that, you know, the Catholic Church adopted it, but it has something where you're actually paying money to get people out of purgatory.

Right? So it's like, wait a minute, where's that in the rest of Scripture? It doesn't square up. Okay, let's look at the bottom there. We have three bullets. There are several lines of reasoning that lead to the conclusion the New Testament canon is now closed.

One, God has completed revealing through his Son and those he elected to serve as contemporary witnesses. So we mentioned the first Sunday here is Scripture and Jesus are special revelations. So if You have Jesus and his assigned witnesses are all gone. You've ended the context for Revelation. That relates to this apostolicity question that we have above here. Second, Jude 3, Revelation 22, 18 and 19, 1 Corinthians 4, Hebrews 2, 1 through 4, etc. all speak of the finality of the apostolic era revelation, among other passages.

That is, all these passages address, you know, God's not continuing to reveal and reveal and reveal and reveal, and it was through these apostles that we have direct testimony. And we don't have people continuing to come up with other things. Now, let's ask this question.

Here's Paul. Did Paul spend time with Jesus while Jesus was in his earthly ministry? No. Why do we make an exception for him, but say we're not going to make an exception for anyone else? Why could we make an exception for him? Well, he saw him on the road to Damascus, and supposedly he was trained by him, so there must have been some connection there, plus his vision of the... You're right. How did the other apostles treat Paul after they got over the shock of, here's this Christian killer that now is on our side. How did the other apostles treat Paul? Did they say, you know, hey, get out of here. What kind of rubbish is this? They gave him the right hand of fellowship. You look at it several places.

One, you see it in Acts. You see it in Paul's letter to the Galatians, where he testifies about having the right hand of fellowship. And you see it in 2 Peter, where Peter writes about the Apostle Paul having written scripture. So you see several evidences here that Paul is embraced by the other apostles.

He was brought together and commissioned him to go out. And so what you see is the other apostles are not kind of, boy, who's this weird guy? Stay away from him. But instead, after getting over the initial shock, they're saying, hey, this guy is with us, and Christ has indeed revealed some unique and special truths through him. and all the other Apostles from any evidence that we have embrace Paul as the Apostle to the Gentiles.

Yes, the Galatians, here's Peter, one of the twelve, and certainly one of the prominent ones among them, and yet here's Paul. Peter, you've got a problem, and he corrects him. Isn't it interesting to have Peter take that correction and then later on write about, you know, this Apostle Paul, he's an okay guy. You know, personalities and I'm the number one guy and I'm the original one and all that didn't seem to matter.

This is an interesting thing in terms of Peter's humility and receptivity to the teaching. Let's take a look here at the next one, the third bullet. There are no more apostles since no others qualify biblically. And we have there from Acts 1.22 down to Hebrews 2.4, various passages that give qualifications to be an apostle. And that appears to have ended. So we give several references at the bottom of page two that you can feel free to take a look at for studying these things more closely. Let's switch over to the interpretation of scripture.

And let's ask this question, why does the interpretation of scripture matter? Why does it make a difference? It doesn't help if you don't know what it means. Okay, it doesn't help if you don't know what it means, right? Well, if it's absolute truth, then it's a good idea to understand what the absolute truth is. Okay, yeah, Randy?

It's recognized as a series of documents that had an intended purpose. Written by an author who actually wanted to communicate something. Right. God intended a specific message and so did the authors of scripture. They intended to convey something specific. The Ethiopian eunuch had scripture but he didn't know what it meant. He didn't know what it meant. That's right. So he got some help from Philip. Philip clarified, here's what it means, and now the Ethiopian eunuch is a believer.

You know, if I said to somebody, you know, hey, we would like you to come over to our house for dinner, 7 o'clock, you know, Tuesday night, you wouldn't likely be walking away. I wonder what Vern meant, you know. Did he mean we're going to have a Bible study? Did he mean, you know, Tuesday the same next year?

We have an intended meaning and an understanding, and I'm not saying that we can't misunderstand one another, but somebody meant something by it, and it was meant to be understood, not put out there as, oh boy, it means one of these half-dozen different things. Okay, let's take a look.

One of the things we have as a point in our doctrinal statement, we call it dispensational interpretation. And by the way, the word dispensational, we're thinking of putting more definition to it because it's one that does get confused. It says, we believe that scripture is to be interpreted according to its grammatical and historical context, including that God, who does not change, deals in a different manner with the Gentile nations, the people of Israel, and the God-created body of heavenly saints called the Church. We believe that all who are saved of all time are saved entirely by faith in Christ, either looking forward or back to the cross.

And so we give numerous references in support of that. So let's take a look at this concept by concept, if you will. Scriptures to be interpreted according to the grammatical and historical context. So each word, verse, and passage is a context in which it was written. Why is context important? Can you grab verses out of context and end up with a very different meaning? Someone has put it together, Judas went out and hung himself, and you find another verse that says, go thou and do likewise. What is the context matters immensely. It matters immensely.

And so that's one of the things we want to look at. Here the bullets have what did the author intend to convey and so we're looking at it from that standpoint. What did the author intend to convey? What did the intended readers of the book of the Bible understand by what the author wrote? All your series in Hebrews is related to that. It was written to the Jews who were steeped in the law.

Grace was a brand new animal and they weren't quite sure whether it was supposed to be grafted in or what to do with the law. After a while, they attended church on one day and went to synagogue on another. They went to synagogue the next and they got it mixed up. What's going on here?

And then the third bullet we have is what did God, the ultimate author of scripture, intend to convey? What does God want me to get out of this? Paul didn't even understand, as he was growing and writing and learning more, the later books became more informative and in-depth than actually some of the earlier books. Like you were talking about Heavily Positioned and things that God had put into Paul's works, but he was learning as well as everybody else, which is amazing.

Yeah, it really is. Here's the book of Romans, 16 chapters long, sometimes called the flagship of the epistles, right? Here is the book of Romans, it tells you in chapter 6, you've been identified with Christ in his death, burial, resurrection. Does the book of Romans put you seated in the heavenlies? No, it does not.

It's Ephesians and Philippians and Colossians are the books that place you in the heavenlies. Ephesians has you seated and blessed in the heavenlies. Philippians has you with a citizenship in the heavenlies. Colossians tells you to set your mind there in the heavenlies where Christ is seated. So those are the books that reveal that. Did the Apostle Paul hold back when he was writing Romans? Did he say, you know, there's this truth but I'm not going to tell him yet. He was always revealing mysteries. He put it right there. He always wrote it down.

Here is what I think is likely the case, that the Apostle Paul, not only early on met with Christ, but had additional revelations, because here are the three books that were written right after he arrives in Rome, and all of a sudden he's talking heavenly things.

I think that somewhere along the path, and we're not told where, somewhere along the path, Late in the Book of Acts time, he's told about these heavenly truths. It may even have been, just take it for instance, it may even have been when he was for two years in the prison there at Caesarea, along the coast. He would be undisturbed in great part, and the Lord would be able to teach him these truths. But it isn't until he gets to Rome and has the opportunity to write these books that we have these heavenly truths revealed. Okay, let's take a look there.

God who does not change deals in a different manner with the Gentile nations, the people of Israel, and the God-created body of heavenly saints called the Church. The first paragraph there, we deal with open theism, and that's the intent of that phrase, God who does not change. Because open theism, a teaching that is, the latest statistic I have is about a third of those who call themselves Christians embrace some aspect of open theism. That is, God changes, and God doesn't necessarily know the future. and doesn't necessarily control the future. So this is the teaching of open theism.

So we discount that, because what that says is, when it says in Romans 8, 28 and 29 there, that God works all things together for good, what that really means is that God tries to work all things together for good. He makes his best attempt. And it means that prophecy is not absolute truth, but God's best guess. So we discount that.

But the other point we make there at the bottom of page 3 is Gentiles first show up in scripture in Genesis chapter 1, the roots of the people of Israel begin in Genesis chapter 12 with Abraham. and continue through Genesis chapter 50. Though Jesus talked about the church toward the end of each of the Gospels, the church began on the day of Pentecost as recorded in Acts chapter 2.

So we have those three groups, and the point we make here is that those three groups get identified separately on into eternity. You and I as a part of the church will not just be mixed in and on the same plane with those who are Gentiles. Those of Israel will be separately identified on into eternity into the new heavens and new earth from us. We will be recognized as different bodies, all saints saved by faith, but different bodies on into eternity. The last couple of chapters of Revelation recognize the Church and Israel and the Gentiles separately. So what God started in Genesis and then with the church started in Acts 2 gets continued on and not just kind of crossed and mixed and mix and match, but continues on as separate identities on into eternity. We will be the bride of Christ the Lamb forever. That's why we'll use the term the eternal romance of Christ in the church. The eternal romance of Christ and the Church. That identity will continue on forever.

And as we interpret scripture, we see it that way. Therefore, we don't just take what Jesus says on the Sermon on the Mount and say, that's for me. We compare what's the same, and we contrast what's different. Yes? Ethnicity is of no consequence, What is considered Israel today? Let's think about it. Right now, are there Jewish believers in the church? Yes, there are. There are Jewish believers in the church.

What did Christ do with that dividing wall of the law regarding the church? He broke it down. This is Ephesians chapter 2. He took that dividing wall out of the way to build up one body. So there are those who are ethnically Jewish now. Some are saved and some are not. When the church is taken out, what you find, you see this in the book of Revelation particularly, what you find is when the church is taken out at the rapture, all of a sudden the focus of scripture is upon Israel and the Gentiles again. Right now, what you have is those who are saved Jews as a part of the church, where their ethnic distinction is not the primary feature, or part of the body of Christ.

Yes, Dan? Doesn't that go along with dispensationalism? Yes, that's exactly the point. In other words, we recognize the distinction between Israel and the Church, and here is Israel baptized into Moses, 1 Corinthians 10, verse 2, right? Here's Israel baptized into Moses. We in the Church are baptized into Christ. The Jews are told in the Old Testament, here's the law, live by it. and no exceptions. We in the church, however, are in a different position. We have died to the law. Entirely different relationship to the law. Yes.

People teach different things about what Israel is now. Everything from the United States being Israel to the Mormon Church being Israel. But isn't Israel now, not the state of Israel, but those who are Jewish by ethnicity who still are believing the Old Testament and still looking for Messiah? Yeah, here's an interesting thing.

Jacob, is the father of the Jewish nation, and he had a twin brother named Esau. How many Jews are there in the world? Some several million, right? And I've seen different numbers, but some several million ethnically identifiable Jews. Do you know of any ethnically identifiable descendants of Esau? Isn't that interesting?

To hear Jews who are a prominent, identifiable people, and by the way, one of every five Nobel Prize winners is Jewish, an identifiable people, the descendants of Esau, haven't heard from since about 70 AD. So you have this rather miraculous distinction as an ethnic group. It's important to emphasize when you say that we recognize a distinction between Israel and the Church.

We also recognize a chronological quality to Adam to Jacob. They're all Gentiles, including Abraham. Jacob's children up until Christ, there's a chronological chunk. The church starts in Acts chapter 2 and there's a transition that takes place. So recognizing the distinction that ethnically, you say right now, You can say, okay, it doesn't matter that you're Jewish, but then when we get to a thousand years, the Jewishness won't matter.

Yeah, here's what's interesting, we say right now, this is Galatians 3.28, is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, all those earthly distinctions don't matter.

But when the church gets taken out, all of a sudden, what happens? Then the earthly distinctions matter. The earthly distinctions will matter again. So the church is a great exception from Acts 2 to the rapture. Acts 2 to the rapture were that those ethnic distinctions, now it doesn't mean that they're not Jewish, or that we're not Gentile, but it means those ethnic distinctions are not primary. That isn't primarily what matters. Suddenly, after the rapture, when the church is taken out, those distinctions will be what matters.

So in other words, you have to accept the fact that we are not here by chance, we are here because God has chosen us to be here at this particular point in time, right? Yeah, this is a God-intended body, the church. It goes all the way down to the individual. And here you have the thief on the cross next to Christ. Jesus says today you will be with me in paradise. Is he saved? Yep. Saved. Saved forever. Was he a part of the church? Because he was already in paradise by the time Acts 2 rolled around.

So a believer saved forever, not a part of the church. So the church is a particular time span but it's also a separate God-created body where ethnic distinctions and other earthly distinctions do not matter, at least not primarily. Real quick, and I know we've got to go, but later on in this handout that you had, it said that we're all saved through believing in Christ, and I accept that. But if you go to the Old Testament, and you read about Abraham and Romans, it says that he was saved because faith in God's promises in the Old Testament were all about God. They were saved because they believed in God. So how does that... Is that because God is part of the plan of Christ's blood later on?

Yeah, and if you look at it, the Old Testament believers did not have the detail that we have. We'll sit there and say, here's Caiaphas and interrogated Jesus, and here's under Pontius Pilate, and we'll all make those points of understanding and faith.

Here's Isaiah, he was writing Isaiah 53, you know, all we like sheep have gone astray and by his stripes we're healed and all that. He didn't necessarily understand all the detail that we understand now. Here is Abraham, he didn't know there was even going to be a guy named Isaiah, right? The book of Genesis was not written yet. It's about him, right? and he dies about halfway through.

So here you have Abraham, who he hasn't got anywhere near the detail we have, but he was still saved by faith. He trusted God for as much as God had revealed at that point in time. But you're saying he's also saved by Christ, right? That's right, because Christ's death is effective for everyone from Adam to the last person born on this planet. So God says, you believe?

That's good enough for me, I'll do the rest. I'll do the rest. The accounting is heaven. Yes. It's amazing, different amounts of revelation. Here we have this entire New Testament book that basically we're going to spend the rest of our lives going into the depths of what that reveals and conveys to us. Here's Abraham that had none of it. Are both saved? Yep. Let's pray. We've got people starting to break into the room here.

Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the fact that you did have the books that you inspired be recognized. We thank you that you have given us what we need to understand your word properly. And we recognize that you did have a specific intended message by what you wrote. And we thank you for it. We thank you that you revealed it because you love us and care for us so deeply. And we just give you thanks for all these wonderful and precious truths. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.