I Will Build My Church

Colossians 1:1-2

Col-009

This morning we look once more at the salutation to the book of Colossians, segment number nine, Colossians 1:1-2.

In Christ

Judaism vs. Christianity

For that reason, we point out that we are the aristocrats of all the Saints of all the ages; and, therefore, there is upon us a burden of acting and living commensurate with our position. But this term in Christ refers to this very special body of believers. It is an assembly of believers, which the Bible calls the Church. It is also called the Body and the bride of Christ. The New Testament Church under Christianity is distinct from the Old Testament nation of Israel under Judaism, and I hope that you have grasped that now, and I hope to demonstrate that a little further this morning. The Church under Christianity totally distinct from Israel under Judaism, they are different. They have different lifestyles. They have no connection with one another, zero zilch, no connection. There are two separate Saint bodies of believers that God has put together for a certain purpose, and He has certain objectives for each one. When you try to mix them, you deny yourself the privilege of the aristocracy, of the Grace era. The way of Salvation as a Grace gift from God to those who trust in the Promised Savior is the same under Judaism and Christianity.

While both Judaism and Christianity are ways of life, that is lifestyles, and please I hope you have grasped that Judaism is a lifestyle. Judaism is a way of living. Christianity is a lifestyle, is a way of living, and when we talk about those things, we are not talking about Salvation. Salvation in the Old Testament was looking forward to the Messiah of Savior, which was to come, which was promised before the era of the Jews from the time of Adam. Salvation was looking forward to the coming seed of the woman who would provide Salvation Promise and Genesis 3:15 in the Garden of Eden. Today we look back to the Savior which has come and has paid the price of our sins with death upon the cross. So it's all centered upon Jesus Christ. Nobody ever goes to heaven except through Christ. That was true from the time of Adam and throughout the Old Testament and throughout the New Testament era. It is true today. What is different is living by human effort under the Old Testament Judaism or living by the power of the Holy Spirit under New Testament Christianity and that is a very big difference. The Apostle Paul in writing to the Romans said there was nothing wrong with the law, it was holy and just and so on, but he said it was weak. And then he said, Why was it weak, weak through the flesh, which means the Old Sin nature. Nobody could do what was right by his own nature but comes along and says under Christianity all that's been solved because now there's the power of the Spirit of God that enables a person to do right. So that was the great difference between these two ways of life. One was dependent upon human will and capacity where the other is the product of God Himself through the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Now these two eras of time represented by Judaism and Christianity are distinctively different ways of living, and the Bible uses a word which is translated in various ways. One of the ways is translated as economy. An economy is a way of doing things. You have a socialist economy, you'd use this Greek word, you have a capitalist economy, you'd use that same Greek word. It's a way of doing things, and it is also translated in the King James Version by the word dispensations, and we get that word from there. Dispensation simply means a way of doing things. Sometimes we simply refer to as the age of the Jews and the age of the Church. But under the dispensation of the law, the nation of Israel is God's representative on earth.

God always has a people who are His prime representatives. From Adam until Moses, the Gentiles were God's representative. From Moses until the Church age, the Jew was His representative. From the time of Pentecost until the Raptor, the Christians are God's representatives on this earth. And after the second coming of Christ, Christ will be the representative of God upon this earth and the millennial kingdom. There's always a key humanity that is the representative of God upon this earth, and under Judaism that was the Jewish nation under the dispensation of Grace, the Church age, the Christians from both Jews and Gentiles are God's representatives on earth. Each of these eras has its own lifestyle, but the lifestyle, the arrangement that God has made in each of these, these eras has one point, has one objective, and that is to prove again that man on his own cannot make his way to heaven.

The whole point of those 613 laws of Judaism was to show you, you couldn't do it, you couldn't make it with God. The whole point of even Grace where God does it all man on his own still can't make it. So, it takes something that only God could do to bring Salvation and ultimately to bring order to society. The New Testament World Church we pointed out means an assembly of people call out from a larger group. From its Greek and its Jewish usage, the word conveys the idea of a theocratic democracy. The dispensation of the Church age was never revealed in the Old Testament scriptures, and that's why it is referred to in a New Testament as a mystery, which means a secret. But it was a secret that was now revealed in the New Testament era, and that, you see, should clue you in that the Church is something different, distinct, separated from Judaism.

Nobody could have found it in the Old Testament. And, in fact, the book of I Peter tells us that the Apostles (when they were told about the coming of Christ) were confused by the analogies. The Old Testament prophet said He's going to come as the meek and lowly lamb, and it said He's going to come as a roaring lion of the tribe of Judah. And Peter says, we scratched our heads and said that's contradictory. How can He come as a meek and lowly lamb and come as a roaring lion as a king? What they did not understand was that there were two comings. They did not understand that here was the coming as the lamb and now at least 2000 years have passed, and He still hasn't come back as the conquering lion, that is still ahead. And the reason that they were confused is that it was like somebody standing on a plateau and seeing two mountain peaks and the two peaks are in appearance right together.

What they didn't realize was that there was a huge valley between them. That is the expanse of the Church age, and nobody in the Old Testament knew that this expanse of time was going to be placed there in which the Church was going to be developed. All of that came later through the explanations primarily given to the Apostle Paul. So, this was a secret. Now it's revealed in a New Testament. The dispensation of law is on hold today until the Church body of believers is completed and taken to heaven. That (I showed you last week) is what they decided in Acts 15 at the Jerusalem conference. James says, "Here's the facts, let's put it together." God has now made this clear that Israel has been set aside temporarily. He is building His body out of the body, the body of Christ, out of Gentiles and Jews made into a new group of Saints. He will come back and pick up Israel later. So, James says, first comes the calling out of the Church, and then at the second coming comes the fulfillment of God's covenants with Israel. That is a divine plan, and if you don't understand that, you have a very confused Bible. First the calling out of the Church, then comes the fulfillment of everything God ever promised to the Jewish people under their covenants beginning with Abraham.

The Church, therefore, we're saying, had a very separate beginning from the Old Testament. First in the book of John 1:17, "For the law was given through Moses." Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ; the law characterizes Judaism. Grace characterizes the era of the Church. So, He had these two distinctive eras here. The law was given through Moses, and then, at a certain point later, Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. When the Lord Jesus Christ came, He came to fulfill the mission of the promise to the Jewish people, the mission to bring in their Kingdom era. Romans 15:8, Paul says, "But I have written very boldly to you on some points so as to remind you again because of the Grace that was given to me from God." What he was speaking to them on in Romans 15:8, "For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God." To confirm the promises given to the fathers, promises are those major four major covenants. They promised Israel a nation forever. They promised them a land forever. They promised a King forever. They promised that they would've a dominant position in this world forever. These were promises that came directly from God. Paul says Jesus came to fulfill those and to set up the Kingdom, but what happened, trouble in paradise. John 1:11 tells us what the result was. John 14:17, "He came to His own and to those who were His own did not receive Him." So, Jesus came and said, "Here I am. I'm ready to set up the kingdom. I call for national repentance. Those of you who are prepared to turn to national repentance go down to the Jordan River and John will baptize you by immersing you in that river and thus demonstrating that you have taken your place with the covenants of God and with the integrity of God." But the Jews in time rejected that; their rejection laid the groundwork for the provision of Christ to pay for the sins of the world and also the basis for the Church age. At a certain point in time, Jesus made it clear that He was turning away from the program to Israel. That mission had now been fully rejected. It happened in the month of April 32 AD precisely to the day of the 483 years of Jewish history that had been completed since Artaxerxes gave the order to go back and rebuild the walls around Jerusalem. And on Palm Sunday, as we call it, the final rejection of the savior is made. Matthew 15:14, Jesus says, "Now concerning the leaders of Israel, let them alone. There are blind guides of the blind." Jesus says, "They will not accept Me. They won't listen to Me, pay no attention to them."

Upon this Rock I will Build My Church

What He was implying was something new is coming. In Matthew 16:4, "And even an evil, an adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and a sign will not be given it except the sign of Jonah. And He left them and went away." That's the point and statement, He left them, and He went away. Now notice Matthew 16:18, Jesus crosses out of Israel, He crosses over to the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, which is Gentile territory. Now He makes on Gentile territory a most dramatic announcement. Matthew 16:18, "And I also say to you that you are Peter (speaking to Peter the Apostle) and upon this rock I will build My Church and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it." Here for the first time, the mystery of the Old Testament is beginning to be revealed. Here the secret long kept by God now begins to unravel as Jesus says, "I'm going to do something different. My nation has rejected me. My mission of bringing in the kingdom has now been postponed, and I will now turn to my secondary mission that of bringing in a new body of believers, Christians, Christianity, the whole Church age. And I say to you that you are Peter, upon this rock I'll build my Church; and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it."

Peter

But when we come to the word Peter, it is a very different. Peter is Petros (pet'-ros) P e t r o s. Two different words. In the Greek dictionary they are both listed as two different words and have two different meanings because Petros is a pebble, it's a chip off the big rock. And very appropriately Peter was a chip off the old block Jesus Christ. But God was not saying that He's going to build His Church upon Peter, the little chip, the little pebble. He said he was building His Church upon something far more solid. Actually, all believers are stones as Peter was a stone in the body of Christ. This is pointed out by Peter himself in his book. I Peter 2:5, Peter says, "You also as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood", privacy of your own priesthood, priesthood, universal priesthood of believers to offer up spiritual sacrifices, those specific non-animal sacrifices, the sacrifice the praise of your lips, sacrifice of substance at the offering box, the sacrifice of service, these sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. You also as living stones. So here we have the same picture that Peter is a living stone in what God is building, and we are living stones in what God is building, and what He is building here specifically is that body, which is called a Church, that structure which is known as a Church of the living God. So Peter himself was not confused about this. As a matter of fact, he understood very well that he was not the rock. He was not the Petra upon which the Church was built. He was merely the Petros, a part out of which that Church was built. Please notice again I Peter 2:4-8, and you'll see that Peter knew that he was not the rock. "And coming to him as to a living stone that is to Christ rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight of God. You also as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For this is contained in scripture, Behold I lay Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone and he who believes in Him shall not be disappointed." Now obviously that is not Peter. He is not the cornerstone; he is not the structure upon which is upon which God is building the Church that Peter is speaking about here. Verse seven says, this precious value then is for you who believe, but for those who disbelieve the stone which the builders rejected, this became the very cornerstone. How ironic Peter says the very cornerstone Christ of this structure, the Church that the builders rejected, the Jewish leaders rejected. This becomes the cornerstone of a new body of Believers that is the Church. Notice in verse eight, and a stone of stumbling in a rock of offense for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.

But you are a chosen race, Christians, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession that you may proclaim the excellency of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Now Peter makes it very clear that He understands that Christ is the cornerstone, He is the one upon whom the Church has built, and that all believers are merely the stones which are being placed upon that foundation of Christ Himself. Peter only viewed himself as one of the living stones which made up the Church universal. Jesus Christ would be the foundation, not the Roman Catholic Pope who claims apostolic authority succession from Peter. Now the statement in Matthew 16:18 is also important for us to look at word by word. When Christ said "I will build my Church," that also tells us something about the distinctiveness of this body of believers.

It's not just Judaism under a new clothing, it's not Judaism under a new facet of a new start. It is totally separate and independent, and that's why Jesus walks out on Gentile territory (Caesarea Philippi) and says "I am through with Israel. That mission has to be postponed to My second coming. I will now proceed with the secondary mission of building the Church." This tells us that this new work is going to be accomplished by Christ alone from heaven. Will. Now even those of us who failed third, seventh grade, whatever English you failed, you know that will is future. It's a future reality at that time. It had not been in existence. How could Jesus say "I'm going to build My Church" if it already began with Abraham? As the covenant theologians argue, I will build my Church. It had not yet started. It was future from that point in time in which Jesus spoke on Gentile territory. "I will build" means that the Church is going to come into existence by gradual process over a period of time.

This is indicated to us in the book of Ephesians 2:20, "having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets and New Testament prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone." Here He's speaking about the Church in whom the whole building being fitted together is growing into a holy temple of the Lord and whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the spirit. This is a description of a new group of believers. This is not just Judaism all over again. This is something different that God is now building, and it is a living stone. Living stone added to living stone is the way the Church is being built, and the way those living stones are added is told to us in I Corinthians 12:12-13, "for even as the body is one and yet has many members referring here, the physical bodies, and all members of the body, though they are many are one body. So also is Christ for note by one, spirit by one Holy Spirit, we were all baptized into one body, the Church body whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves are free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit."

Here the statement is very clear that the way the Church is being built is that when a person trusts in Christ as personal savior, one of the things that happens to him is that he's instantly baptized by the Holy Spirit, one of the dry baptisms, and he's placed into the body of Christ. If you do not have the baptism of the Holy Spirit, you're not going to heaven. This is part of the nonsense of the Charismatic movement which ruins meaning so people can receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They perverted it, and it changed into a totally, totally different confused thing than what is in the Bible. Everybody who is born again receives a baptism of the Holy Spirit at the point of their faith in Christ. That is how the Church is being built. That is how you as a living stone are then added to the body of Christ. You see at some point in history, probably not too far distant, the baptism of the Holy Spirit is going to take place one more time, and when someone believes in Christ for the last person, he's the last part of the structure, he's the last stone, and when that person is in the Rapture takes place. The building then will be complete, but it is built by the spirit of God.

I will build My Church. There's one other thing about this building. While the baptism of the Holy Spirit is the ultimate mortar that holds us together, the human agents that are involved are the believers, you, and I, and we need to clear up one other confusion. We have it in Matthew 16:18, this same passage where Jesus says, "When I build my Church, all of Hades will rail against it, but they won't be able to bring it down." In Matthew 16:19, He said, "I will give you the keys to the kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you shall lose on earth shall be loose in heaven." Oh, the Pope has a field day with this verse since he's assumed in the previous verse that he is the one upon whom the Church is built. He assumes that verse 19 gives him the keys of the kingdom and part of the symbols at the Vatican representing the representing the Pope by these crossed keys indicating that he has the power to say, you go to heaven, you don't go to heaven. This is why Roman Catholicism, if you are not under the favor of the Church, the organization, you do not go to heaven. They can excommunicate you. A whole nation can be put under interdict and keep the whole nation from going to heaven. This is a tremendous power and a great fear that is exercised by the Papacy over Roman Catholics, the keys of the kingdom. What he's referring to here is a prerogative which later was given to all the believers. It's a prerogative of witnessing. If you will note in John 20, you will observe that this same authority for opening and closing the way into heaven was given to all believers. In John 20:22, Jesus is now with His disciples, 10 of them; Thomas is not there. When He had said this, what He had spoken to them about what they would now take over as His representatives, He was going to leave them. They would be the witnesses, and when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit."

The day of Pentecost was still 50 days ahead, and at this point in time they had a temporary endowment of the Spirit of God. Then in verse 23, having given them this power of the Holy Spirit, which you and I have automatically now, if you forgive the sins of any, their sins shall have been forgiven, then if you retain the sins of any they have been retained. Now how do you and I forgive and retain the sin of others? This is exactly what is referred to in Matthew 16:19, "retaining and forgiving the sins of others." What He is referring to is your witnessing capacity. If you tell a person the gospel, you explain to them how they may receive eternal life, you have given them the key that opens the way into heaven. If you do not give them the gospel, you have denied them the key for entrance into heaven. If you give them the gospel and you've turned the key in the lock, the door is now open. They have to go through, they must respond with positive volition. If they do not go through, God holds against them a serious sin of having rejected Jesus Christ. So you see, you have forgiven people their sins if they go positive to the gospel and you have opened the door to heaven; or you have put in upon them by telling them the gospel and they refuse it. This is why Jesus on one occasion told the Pharisees and the leaders, you people would be wise if you did not listen to Me, if you did not come out to hear the preaching. If you did not come out to hear this instruction because now that you know the truth, your hell is going to be a whole lot worse because hell is commensurate with your understanding of the truth.

The pain of hell is not the same for everyone. Bible's very clear about that, from him that has much so much be expected and those who reject against great spiritual enlightenment will suffer the greater consequences for that. So, this verse is saying that Jesus Christ is going to build a Church. The Spirit of God will add the person that the baptism, the Holy Spirit when he believes, but to step up to believing is the gospel that we give people. That's the key in all believers. What was given here to all these disciples by implication comes to all of us today. And what Christ is going to build is My Church. It is His personal possession because it is His body of which He is the head, and it is His bride of which He is the bride groom. It is His Church, which means a distinctive group called out from the mass of humanity to form a different body of Saints.

This new body of believers began officially on the day of Pentecost Acts 2:1-4. "And when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place"; that is the believers. At that time, the believers were together at one place, when suddenly they heard a noise that disturbed everybody in the room. They knew something big was about to happen. Those who had been sleeping suddenly awoke, and they were now all alert to the words which were being spoken. "And when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place up in the upper room and suddenly there came from heaven, a noise like a violent rushing wind; and it filled a whole house where they were sitting, and there appeared to them tongues of fire distributing themselves. And they rested on each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance." Here, suddenly as the believers were gathered together in this upper room, a dramatic thing happened. Jesus had previously said, "When I go to heaven, the Spirit of God will come and replace Me. I will no longer be personally resident upon this earth; I'll be in heaven." And He was personally resident in heaven and omnipresent here on this earth. So, they will switch places, and this happened on a day of Pentecost. What happened was that these 120 believers were suddenly fused together in the first stones that were that were building the Church structure. Here the Church had a beginning big secret in the Old Testament, certainly never existed. Now that Church body begins, and to show that something different had happened, one of the symbols of the Holy Spirit from time of memorial has been fire. And so suddenly these flames of fire on the heads of the believers, they knew something had happened that was amazingly important and, furthermore, they suddenly were surprised that they could speak foreign languages.

Tongues

Well, we can't do that today. The only speaking in tongues today is pure gibberish, and it's calculatedly performed, and it is not something that the Spirit of God does. But here it was real languages, but for what purpose? Communicating the doctrine of Salvation by the Grace of God, and it was necessary until the New Testament was written. That's why I Corinthians 13 tells you that that gift will be phased out, prophecy will be phased out. Once it's written in the scripture, there's not going to be anymore prophecy, not going to be anymore communicating from God by special proof that God is speaking. See, when you realize that Judaism had been in force for centuries, and all of a sudden God's saying Judaism is out, forget it. Put it out of your mind, it's through, its finished, it's out of here, baby, the whole thing. That's it. Now we've got something new, and I'm going to have to teach you the details. I'm raising up a man named Paul, and he's going to get the full impact; the full details of the Church age, and I'll tell you about that. Just don't mix it up with Judaism. And so one of the proofs that this was different, but that people could speak in foreign languages. Nobody exercises this kind of gift of tongue today. But there's something else that you should know that not only it says here that they were filled with the Spirit. Now you and I, when we have our known sins confess as prefers I John 1:9, we are filled with the spirit. That's what it means to be a spiritual Christian. Doesn't mean to be a mature Christian, but even a very immature Christian can be a spiritual Christian. It means the Holy Spirit is running his life and is leading him, is guiding him according to principles of the doctrine that he knows, and they were filled with the spirit. This always happens when a person is saved at the point of his Salvation. He is in that inner circle. You know it well; the outer circle is eternal fellowship with God. The Inner circle, temporal fellowship, trust in Christ. You get shot right there into the inner circle. This is the area of being filled with the Spirit. You step out of this inner circle with sin. You are now in the area of carnality. You are now under the domination of the old sin nature, not under the domination of the Holy Spirit. You confess that sin to God per I John 1:9, you pop back into the inner circle of temporal fellowship. This is where your prayers are answered. This is where you have guidance in your service. This is where you have prosperity. This is where you make your money. This is where God pours blessings upon you. This is where life becomes meaningful. And this is where those of you who have spent most of your life here in the inner circle will receive the crown of righteousness. It's a medal of honor. Not everybody gets that crown. It's the crown of having lived in the inner circle; maximize your life in that inner circle! You just kept confessing sin, ceasing and desisting, and getting back in so that God was able to bless and prosper and carry your life forward to heights beyond which you could never have dreamed and certainly a Jew could never have achieved. This is what is meant by filling of the Spirit. Now this happened to them, but there was something else that also happened to them that we don't find out until seven years later, an incident that happened to a Roman soldier, an officer in the Roman legions named Cornelius. We had this in Acts 11:15-16, where Peter identifies something that happened on the day of Pentecost, which Acts does not tell us. Peter is defending the fact that Gentiles here seven years later have a right to be part of the Church.

They are part of the body of Christ. They are different than in the Old Testament where Gentiles were not involved unless they became Proselytes. Here it is, Acts 11:15-16, "And as I began to speak here in the household of Cornelius at Caesarea, and as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as He did upon us at the beginning. And I remember the word of the Lord, how He said, how He used to say, 'John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.'" From this verse we know that what also happened on a day of Pentecost was the baptism of the Holy Spirit took place for the first time, so they were also baptized by the Holy Spirit, placed in the inner circle, and they were now part of the Church body. The whole thing suddenly came together on that day.

Since then, every person that trusts in Christ the Savior is baptized into the body of Christ. He pops into this inner circle. He is now in full walk with God. God is his friend, and he is walking in subjection. Anybody ever tells you to yield your life, Churches like to have services, please come down the aisle. Those of you who would like to yield your life to God. You don't yield your life to God by walking down an aisle. You yield your life right here. This is what yielding in the Bible means. It means saying, "Father, I'm wrong. Your principles are right. I've been out of line, and I admit it. I'm changing my ways." Spirit of God bounces you right back into that inner circle. He's in charge, and blessing starts pouring out of you left and right up upon your life. So, this is a great system that God has provided, but never for the Jews. You're not going to find anything like this in the Old Testament, but always for those who are in a Church age. So, this marvelous thing took place that began the Church at distinct body, and those are the people to whom Paul is writing the letter of Colossians. There is one of the things this morning.

Take a look at John 14:16-20 in clarifying the distinctiveness of the Church from Israel. John 14:16-20, Jesus says, "And I will ask the Father and He will give you another helper (that is the coming Holy Spirit) that He may be with you forever." Aha, the Holy Spirit's going to come to me, and He's going to be with me forever. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit was with the Jew. If he needed to do something about building on the temple, he needed a certain skill, he needed a certain ability and battle. And so God, the Holy Spirit, would come upon him, and then He would leave him here. He would be with me forever. That is the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not behold Him or know Him. But you know Him because He abides with you, and He will be in you. The Spirit of God elsewhere we're told makes our bodies His temple. I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. I'm going to send someone to take My place. After a little while, the world will behold me no more, but you will behold Me because I live. You shall live also. And here's the great relationship in verse 20, "In that day, you shall know that I am in My Father, you and Me, and I in you." This enormous relationship between the Son of God and the believer Christ in us, the hope of glory. He in us, we in Him.

Now the Lord Jesus Christ is absent in heaven during the Church age. The Holy Spirit is here in His place producing the character of Christ in us. The Pauline doctrine of the Church is second only in importance of the doctrine of Salvation by Grace. And that's why I have stressed these last few weeks, the concept of Church. There's no mistake in your mind. This is the second most important doctrine and a New Testament. If you have this wrong, you'll bundle up the Bible from one end to the other. Salvation by Grace provides the supernatural materials out of which a true Church is formed. Paul's gospel (or the good news) includes these two features: Salvation by Grace and Church age distinctive. That's what was taught him in the Arabian Desert for three years. Both of these doctrines came to Paul by direct revelation from God, and they are the details of the epistles that he wrote. Galatians 1:11-12 and Ephesians 3:1-6 tell us how he didn't get this from the other apostles. God directly explained to them, Church age truth.

Acts 1:5 says that the baptism of the Holy Spirit will happen on the day of Pentecost. Acts 11:15 says that the baptism of the Holy Spirit happened on the day of Pentecost. That was the beginning of the Church age. Acts 1:5 declares the prophecy of the future baptism of the Holy Spirit, which signals the beginning of the Church age. That baptism which we've looked at in I Corinthians 12:13, Body of Christ is universal. This is what you and I are part of. And it started in one spot in the city of Jerusalem with 120 believers. And in 30 years this Church covered the known world, and Judaism was left far behind out of the picture completely. Now there are some distinctives that I need to tell you about that will identify for you how you are different from any Old Testament believer and will help you to say, Now I understand what is for the Jew is for the Jew. What is for the Christian is totally different. We have everything the Jew could ever dream of in righteousness and more because we had the capacity to do right. The Jew never could get it together. The best of them were never on the plane of capacity that you have for living for God and, consequently, to be under His blessing.

Closing prayer

Dr. John E. Danish, 1995

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