It is true that in the Church Age, after Pentecost, when a person gets “born again” they receive holy spirit, which is the guarantee of everlasting life. So in the Church Age having holy spirit and having everlasting life are tied together, but that was not the case before the Day of Pentecost. The majority of the people in the Old Testament did not have holy spirit upon them, but that did not mean they would not be saved at the Judgment. https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Gen/2/17/1
Many things have been added by various teachers or denominations to the simple truth that all a person had to do to be saved was trust in Jesus; that he died, was raised, and is Lord. Some of those wrongly added things include: being water baptized, confessing one’s sins, believing in the Trinity, going to church regularly, not sinning after “getting saved,” and not committing a “mortal” sin. But in Abraham we see the Old Testament foreshadow of the New Testament salvation that is so clearly articulated in the New Testament epistles. God declared Abraham righteous based only on his trust in God. Trust, nothing more. Abraham was declared “righteous!” before he was circumcised, which occurred after God declared him righteous (Abraham was circumcised in Gen. 17). Furthermore, Abraham was never water baptized. In fact, the kind of baptism practiced by John and Jesus does not seem to have been practiced by the Jews until after the Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC, well over 1000 years after Abraham, and exactly when and under what circumstances the New Testament form of baptism came into existence is not known.
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Genesis/chapter15/6
In the times of the Old Testament, the average believer did not have the gift of holy spirit that was poured out upon every believer on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2) and so they had to deal with spiritual wickedness in a physical way, by putting the evil person to death. Today every believer has the gift of holy spirit (Eph. 2:13-14) and so we wrestle against evil forces with spiritual weapons (Eph. 6:10-20).
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Ex/22/18/1
Ps 45:6 Your throne is God forever.
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Psalms/chapter45/6
Ps 110:1 O Adonai?
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Psalms/chapter110/5
Dan 12:1 "The scriptural evidence points to the fact that the Rapture will be just prior to those 7 years of tribulation."
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Dan/12/1
Dan 9:27 "There is very good evidence for a pre-tribulation Rapture."
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Daniel/chapter9/27
Scripture supports that the Administration of Grace, the Christian Church, will end with the Rapture, and quickly after that the Great Tribulation will begin and last seven years, ending with the Battle of Armageddon and Satan being imprisoned (Rev. 19:11-20:4).
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Isa/13/9/1
…when the Christian Church started on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2), the Church became the Temple of God (1 Cor. 3:16).
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Lev/15/16/1
Also, after the Day of Pentecost when the New Birth became available, salvation was permanent by birth so a person could not lose salvation by becoming caught up in sexual sin. Nevertheless, a person can lose all his rewards and enter the Kingdom with nothing, so sin in general, and sexual sin, are very serious indeed.
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Prov/2/19/1
Salvation has always been by trusting God, by “faith.” Faith does not earn salvation; it is a necessary condition for salvation. Today, in the Administration of Grace, we believe “unto” salvation (Rom. 10:10).
Our trust does not save us, but it opens the door for God to save us.
However, people who lived before Jesus paid for the sins of mankind and before God made the New Birth available had to maintain their trust in God throughout their lives, so it was appropriate that God referred to everlasting life as the “wage of righteousness,” the “wage earned by righteousness.”
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Prov/10/16/1
It is also possible that this section of Scripture about this very ungodly generation is ultimately pointing to the generation that will be alive on earth after the Rapture of the Church, when the people’s love will grow cold and the earth will experience great tribulation. At that time there will indeed be a generation that acts like Proverbs 30:11-14portrays.
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Prov/30/11/1
Before the Day of Pentecost which started the Christian Church and the Age of Grace, and after the Rapture, a person could sin so badly
that he had his name expunged from the Book of Life.
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Ezek/13/9/1
In the Church Age, believers are “born again,” which is a one-time event of spiritual birth that assures that they will live forever. However, before the Day of Pentecost, in the Old Testament and Gospels, a person had to maintain their trust in God to be assured of being saved.
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Ezek/33/12/1
There are some who say that this phrase means a person has to be water baptized to be saved, but that cannot be the case.
When Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, no one had to be baptized to be saved….in no case did the Word of God, or John or Jesus, say it was a requirement for salvation.
If that were true that people had to be baptized to be saved, then all the OT believers would have had to have been baptized to be saved, which is clearly not the case.
Or if God made a new requirement that starting with the ministry of John people had to be baptized to be saved, then that would have been both clearly stated and openly practiced.
However, it is never stated that baptism was a new requirement for salvation, and it was not universally practiced by Jesus or his disciples.
When he sent out the 12 (Luke 9:1-5) and when he sent out the 72 (Luke 10:1-12), in neither case did he tell any of his disciples to baptize those who listened and believed the message.
This fact is made even clearer when the rich man came to Jesus and specifically asked how to be saved (Matt. 19:16ff).
Jesus answered: “If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.”
Jesus did not mention baptism because it was not essential in order to be saved.
“Theologians who do not believe that Christ can be mistaken in what he said have given various possible explanations for what Christ said, and these will be handled further on in this commentary entry.”
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Matthew/chapter16/28
Many theologians do not believe Jesus could have been inaccurate in what he said about the timing of the coming of his kingdom in spite of the fact that many Old Testament prophets had been inaccurate about it, saying the Day of the Lord would come soon when it did not (cp. Joel 1:15; 2:1; 3:14; Isa. 13:6; 29:17; 46:13; 51:5; 56:1; Zeph. 1:7, 14; Ezek. 30:3; Obad. 1:15; Hag. 2:6-7).
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Matt/17/2
If water baptism was all that was important and necessary for salvation, there would have been no need for the disciples to wait in Jerusalem or receive the gift of holy spirit.
Sadly, many people, in their teaching, reverse what Jesus said here in Acts.
Many Christians say water baptism is essential for the believer, and act as if baptism in holy spirit is not really essential but perhaps “nice to have,” or valuable in many ways.
Jesus was teaching quite the opposite.
He knew the disciples had already been water baptized.
He also knew it would no longer be intrinsically valuable after the Church started on the Day of Pentecost. The Greek is hudor (#5204 u[dwr) in the dative, thus, “with water.” Thus it is clear that the element that people were baptized with was water. However, in the later part of the verse, the specific word “in” (en (#1722 evn)) is used, emphasizing that the Christian is baptized “in” holy spirit. There is one baptism for the Christian, and it is spirit, not water (cp. Eph. 4:5).
John’s baptism was a shadow of what was to come, and even John himself said this (Matt. 3:11; etc.). There is no reason to baptize in water today.
Nevertheless, the practice continues, and sadly some even teach that it is necessary for salvation. For more on baptism, see John Lynn, What is True Baptism (Christian Educational Services, 2002).
https://qzxf73.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/What-Is-True-Baptism.pdf
REVISED
“with water.” The Greek is hudōr (#5204 ὕδωρ) in the dative case indicating the means by which the baptism occurs, i.e., the element that people were baptized with was water. John’s baptism was a shadow of what was to come, and even John himself said this (Matt. 3:11). Sadly, there are some who teach that water baptism is necessary for salvation. But Jesus never made water baptism a requirement for salvation, nor did any of his apostles. The apostles continued to baptize with water as commanded by the Lord Jesus (cf. Matt. 28:19), not for salvation, though, but for the symbolism of the washing away of sin and the new life of the believer in Christ.
[For more on baptism, see John W. Schoenheit, The History & Doctrine of Christian Baptism.]
“with holy spirit.” This refers to the holy spirit that is the gift of God.
[For more information on the holy spirit and uses of “holy spirit,” see Appendix 7: “What is the Holy Spirit?” and also see Appendix 15: “Usages of ‘Spirit.’”]
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/comm/Acts/chapter1/5
Acts 19:5 And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
At this point it seems that Paul, or some of the people who were with him, did indeed baptize these disciples in water, but the reason for that is not stated, although several are good possibilities. One possibility is that at that time in the Church water baptism was the act that showed the outside world that the one who was baptized was more than a casual onlooker or visitor to Christian meetings, but a committed believer, and such a show of commitment would help the Word move in the society. It is also possible that Paul was walking by the spirit and the Lord knew that being water baptized would help solidify these men in their commitment. What the water baptism did not do was get them saved (they already were saved) or cause the gift of holy spirit to be born in them (it was born in them when they first believed). This baptism “into the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 2:38; 19:5; 8:16; 10:48) is different from being “baptized in holy spirit” (Acts 1:5; 11:16; 1 Cor. 12:13). Being “baptized in holy spirit” occurs when a person is saved, whereas water baptism is symbolic of that salvation as well as the washing away of sins. We can see this in Acts 10:47-48 because Peter baptized the house of Cornelius “in the name of Jesus Christ” after they had already been saved and received holy spirit into manifestation (Acts 10:44-48). Similarly, Paul recounted that it was after he believed that he was water baptized (Acts 22:16). As we can see from Acts 19:5, Paul did baptize, or oversee the baptism of, other people. That is not to say, however, that during his two years of ministry at Ephesus Paul could have become much clearer about water baptism, for when he wrote 1 Corinthians toward the end of his stay in Ephesus (c. AD 55), he said Jesus did not send him to baptize (1 Cor. 1:17). In addition, by the time he wrote Ephesians, likely in AD 62, he wrote that there was “one baptism” for the Church, and that was the baptism in holy spirit. But even after writing Ephesians, it is quite possible that Paul continued to occasionally water baptize as part of people’s public commitment to Christ.
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/comm/Acts/chapter19/5
Paul did not mention the Rapture of the Church because he was not trying to give an exact description of future events, but simply noting that both righteous and unrighteous people will be raised from the dead and judged. Until the Church Epistles stated that the Christian Church would be taken up to heaven from the earth in an event theologians refer to as “the Rapture” (1 Thess. 4:16-18), the Bible had only revealed that there would be two resurrections. In this abbreviated context, Paul includes the Rapture in the resurrection of righteous people because that is exactly what happens in the Rapture: righteous people are raised from the dead. The point Paul was making was that both good and bad people will get up and be judged, which could have been quite unsettling to his powerful and often cruel audience, and Paul did not want that point to get mired down in details.
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Acts/24/15/1
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Romans/chapter3/22
What Jesus said and did was intimately connected with the Old Testament, and he used the language and concepts of the Old Testament when he taught. This would be much easier to see if the page in the Bible that is traditionally placed between Malachi and Matthew, and says in huge letters, “The New Testament,” was placed between the Gospel of John and the book of Acts.
When we think about it, “the New Covenant” (“New Testament”) was inaugurated in Christ’s blood, with his death (Matt. 26:28), which is at the end of the Gospels, not at the beginning. Until the time of Jesus’ death, people were still living under the Old Covenant, and in the Gospels Jesus spoke the languages of the Old Covenant, which were Hebrew and Aramaic. If the page that says, “The New Testament” was placed between the Gospel of John and the book of Acts, we would be able to better understand two things: first, that Jesus spoke and taught as an Old Testament prophet, fulfilling the Law, and second, that the New Covenant was inaugurated at the end of his life. Historically, the reason the page “The New Testament” is placed between Malachi and Matthew has nothing to do with the subject matter of the Bible at all. It was placed where it is because the books before it were in Hebrew and Aramaic, and the books after it were in Greek. That, however, is a very misleading reason to put the page where it is, because the average Christian just assumes that “the New Covenant” somehow started with the Gospels, when it did not.
The Apostles did not know anything about the Rapture of the Christian Church, which is part of the Administration of the Sacred Secret, so they did not mention it.
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Matthew/chapter24/3
So from Scripture, we learn that there are three “categories” or “types” or people in the Millennial Kingdom.
- Christians raptured into the air at the close of the Church Age who then return to earth with Christ during his Second Coming to fight the battle of Armageddon. They will remain on earth and enter the Millennial Kingdom. Each Christian will have a glorious new body fashioned after Jesus’ resurrected body (Phil. 3:21).
- Believers (both Jew and Gentile) who died before the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) and believers who will die during the Tribulation. These believers will be resurrected and transformed into immortals during the First Resurrection, which occurs after the battle of Armageddon (Ezek. 37:12-14; Rev. 20:4-6). This category includes believers such as Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Miriam, Joshua, Ruth, Samuel, David, Esther, Daniel, and those murdered during the Tribulation for their refusal to worship the Beast (Rev. 13:15).
- “Natural” or mortal believers who survive the Tribulation and the battle of Armageddon and are judged “righteous” (Matt. 25:31-46). This category will include both Jews and Gentiles. The term “natural” is used to provide a distinction between these people, who are mortals, and the people who are no longer “natural” but immortal, namely, those in categories a and b. These “natural” people will experience the same life cycle of all mortals. They will grow, mature, marry, procreate, age, and die (Isa. 65:20-25).
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Matthew/chapter25/34
“if indeed you continue in the faith.” Christian salvation is permanent.
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Colossians/chapter1/23
The revelation that is addressed specifically to the Christian Church is written in the seven epistles (letters) of Paul to the Church, known theologically as the “Church Epistles.” People sometimes doubt that there will be the “Rapture” because Jesus did not mention it in this teaching about the end times.
Jesus did not teach about it because it is part of “Sacred Secret,” of the Administration of God’s Grace (see commentary on Ephesians 3:2).
The Rapture is not found in the Old Testament or the Gospels but is part of the revelation of the Church Epistles. The revelation that is addressed specifically to the Christian Church is written in the seven epistles (letters) of Paul to the Church, known theologically as the “Church Epistles.” The fact that these seven epistles (Romans through Thessalonians) are especially important to the Christian Church is not often taught, yet it is of vital importance. Israel will not be Raptured but will be resurrected and then return to the land of Israel (Ezek. 37:11-14).
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Mat/24/40/1
Because John penned the Book of Revelation and sent it to those seven churches, many commentators have falsely assumed that the letters to those same churches in the Book of Revelation, which are in Revelation 2 and 3, are written to Christians. They are not. The scene changes from John’s lifetime to the distant future in Revelation 1:10. Revelation 1:10 says that John was “in the spirit on the Lord’s day,” in other words, John was transported in a revelation vision to the Day of the Lord, which was future in John’s lifetime and is still future today. So, although John sent the Book of Revelation to Christian Churches on earth during his lifetime, the Book of Revelation contains a letter to the people who come to believe in those cities after the Rapture and during the Great Tribulation, which is why those letters are so different from the seven Church Epistles of Paul.
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Revelation/chapter1/4
Paul, in the Church Epistles, again confirmed what both the Law, and Jesus, said: that a person should not divorce, but if they did then it was not a sin to remarry after being divorced.
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Mat/19/9/1
In the same way, after supper, he also took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink, in remembrance of me.”
“new” The Greek kainos means new in quality. It is not just “new” in time, which would be neos, the New Covenant is new in quality. It was ratified at the last supper, and will be effective when Christ returns to earth and sets up his kingdom. Just because Christ ratified the New Covenant in his death does not mean it is in force. God gave Abraham the land by covenant, and yet he never saw it in his life, and in fact the Israelites never had the full extent of the land God promised in covenant, but they will get it in the Millennial Kingdom.
Thus, there can be a large gap between when a covenant is made and when it is fulfilled. That is the case today. All one has to do is study in the OT what God says will happen when the New Covenant is in force to realize it is not in force yet. We today are living in the Administration of the Sacred Secret.
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/1-Corinthians/chapter11/25
It is common to hear people say, “The word ‘Rapture’ is not in the Bible,” but that is not true. It is in the Bible: it is in Latin versions such as the Vulgate. The word “Jesus” is only in the English Bible because “Jesus” is an English word; “Jesus” is not in the Greek or Hebrew Bible. But it would be silly to say “Jesus” is not in the Bible just because it is not in the Greek or Hebrew Bible. Any legitimate translation by necessity uses words in its own language, and “rapture” comes from the Latin and is in the Vulgate. So a more accurate statement would be: “The word ‘rapture’ is not in the English Bible.” The helpful thing about the word “Rapture” is that the theologians who use it all know exactly what it refers to without any ambiguity. Jesus did not teach about the Rapture because he did not yet know about it, or, if he did, he knew his disciples did not and thus did not mention it. What the Bible calls “the Administration of the Grace of God” and also “the Administration of the Sacred Secret,” started on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 and ends with the Rapture [This] was not foretold in the Old Testament or Gospels, so Jesus did not teach about it. Paul writes about the Rapture, and we should believe what he wrote. God started the Christian Church on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2, and it was a totally new program than what had gone before. For example, in the Christian Church, Jews and Gentiles became one in Christ. Also, Christians were guaranteed salvation, something God had never done before. In contrast to the Rapture and the promise to be taken to heaven, Israel had a different promise, which was that their graves would open and they would be taken back to the land of Israel (Ezek. 37:12-14). This promise to Israel will be fulfilled after Jesus Christ fights the Battle of Armageddon and conquers the earth. One thing that the Rapture does well is allow for God to be completely fair to mankind, and demonstrate His wonderful justice. After the Rapture the Great Tribulation will occur. Jesus spoke of the Great Tribulation in Matthew 24 (cp. Mark 13 and Luke 21), and said there would be earthquakes, famines, wars, pestilence, and that “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive” (Matt. 24:22 NIV). The reason the Great Tribulation will be so terrible is that God will pour out His wrath upon mankind for the sins of all people. As we have seen, the Administration of the Sacred Secret comes to an end with the Rapture, when every Christian is taken off the earth and into heaven. Since salvation is by faith in Christ, when the Rapture occurs every single person who has faith in Christ, as well as their children who are not yet old enough to have faith on their own, will be taken from the earth to be with Christ (1 Corinthians 7:14 makes it clear that the children of Christians who are too young to have faith on their own are considered “holy” to God).
That means that immediately after the Rapture, for the very first time in all of history since early Genesis, the only people on earth will be those who are unrighteous in the sight of God.
“in the clouds...in the air.” At the Rapture, Christians will be taken off the earth and into the clouds, into the air, to meet Jesus. We will be in heaven with him during the time of the Great Tribulation. Occasionally people who deny the Rapture say that “in the air” just means that people are raised from the dead and so become “in the air” instead of being dead “in the ground.” But that explanation is incorrect. For one thing, this verse is speaking of those Christians who are still alive at the Rapture, and therefore are already standing on earth. So being taken to a meeting “in the air” has to be different than simply being alive on earth. Furthermore, Christians are taken up “in the clouds,” and generally in the Bible and specifically in this context, clouds are above the earth, which is why this verse says that Christians have to be taken “up” into the clouds. Sometimes clouds are pictured as being in heaven itself, as when Jesus is sitting on a cloud (Rev. 14:14-16), but in any case, believers are taken into heaven where Jesus is, and are “seated” there (Eph. 2:6). The “post-tribulation premillennial Rapture” doctrine is that Christians go through the entire Tribulation and then, just as Jesus and his army are coming down from heaven to fight the Battle of Armageddon, Christians are Raptured up into the air where we meet Jesus and come back down to earth with him. However, that doctrine cannot be correct for a number of reasons. One reason is that Christians would then go through the wrath, whereas the Bible says Christians do not go through the wrath (Rom. 5:9; 1 Thess. 1:10; 5:9; see commentary on 1 Thess. 1:10). Also, there would be no “comfort” in knowing we were going through the Tribulation (see commentary on 1 Thess. 4:18). Also, Ephesians 2:6 says the Christian will be “seated” in the heavenlies with Jesus Christ, and that would not be the case if we meet him as he is coming down from heaven.
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/1-Thessalonians/chapter4/17
The Rapture would allow for God’s love and mercy in a unique way: Every person on earth who believes in Christ would be raptured off the earth before the Great Tribulation, thus delivering them from the wrath of God (Rom. 5:9; 1 Thess. 5:9). Of course, very shortly after the Rapture people will begin to believe and be righteous before God, but at the time of the Rapture they will not have believed yet. The Rapture is God’s way of making sure that no saved person on earth will be forced to go through the Great Tribulation simply because he or she happens to be alive at that time in history. Until the moment the Rapture happens, every unsaved person has the chance to believe and be saved (Rom. 10:9) and escape the wrath of God that we see poured out in the book of Revelation.
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Luke/11/50
Appendix 1, OSAS
Christians are not sealed “until they sin” or “until they renounce Christ,” they are sealed “until the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30).
The holy spirit created by God inside a person “seals” that person as God’s property and guarantees their salvation.
Christians never have to pray like David did, begging God not to take His gift of holy spirit from them.
There is no “if” in God’s saying that the holy spirit is a deposit that guarantees us our future inheritance.
But more to the point, if what the Church Epistles are saying is that a person will be saved only if they remain faithful to God, then there is nothing new about that message; it is the same message that is in the Old Testament and Gospels.
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Appendix/1/bb
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