Babylon As Metaphor For Apostasy Runs Twice

[tulsa 2011]

Babylon As Metaphor For Apostasy Runs Twice


Old Covenant Israel was changed as II Kings 21: 13, Isaiah 29: 16 and especially Jeremiah 18: 1-6 predict. That prophecy of the transformation of Old Covenant Israel was fulfilled in the remnant of Israel which accepted Christ, and is seen in Romans 11: 5, or Romans 11: 1-5. Those of Old Covenant Israel who rejected Christ are cut off in Romans 11:15-21.


"I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." John 10: 10
Christ changed physical Israel so that those in it and those of Hosea 2: 23, which were not his people but who become his people, could have spiritual life more abundantly. "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Matthew 15: 24


He was sent first to the lost sheep of the house of Old Covenant Israel. Yet only a small number of Old Covenant Israel accepted him, and in them his work to bring spiritual life to spiritually dead Old Covenant Israel was fulfilled. The majority, on the broad way, did not accept him. "Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." Matthew 7: 13-15


Babylon in Jeremiah 50 and 51 is Old Covenant Israel in apostasy, and Babylon in Revelation 17 and 18 is New Covenant Israel in apostasy. The apostasy runs twice. Babylon is metaphoric, using the name Babylon as an empire which took Old Covenant Israel into captivity for 70 years.


"Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel that prophesy, and say thou unto them that prophesy out of their own hearts, Hear ye the word of the LORD; 3. Thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing!" Ezekiel 13: 2-3. . The prophecy of bringing Old Covenant Israel to its end in Ezekiel 7 is the Lord's judgment for following the false prophets. .Jeremiah 25: 11 says "And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years." Jeremiah 29: 19-20 says "Because they have not hearkened to my words, saith the LORD, which I sent unto them by my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them; but ye would not hear, saith the LORD. Hear ye therefore the word of the LORD, all ye of the captivity, whom I have sent from Jerusalem to Babylon."


"My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their resting place..........Remove out of the midst of Babylon, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be as the he goats before the flocks." Jeremiah 50: 6, 8


"Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul: be not cut off in her iniquity; for this is the time of the LORD's vengeance; he will render unto her a recompence." Jeremiah 51: 6
"For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; The daughter of Babylon is like a threshingfloor, it is time to thresh her: yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come." Jeremiah 51: 33


Jeremiah 23: 31-32 gives the reasons why God sent physical Israel into the literal Babylonian captivity, and Jeremiah 29: 8-10 repeats the reasons and says physical Israel will be in captivity seventy years.
Yet the Babylon in Jeremiah 50 and 51 quoted above is not the literal Babylon of king Nebuchadnezzar. It is a metaphoric concept. The metaphoric Babylon in Jeremiah 50 and 51 is physical Israel in false doctrines and false practices. But there are verses in Jeremiah 50 and 51 which apply also to the time of the New Covenant and the falling into false doctrines by what the II Timothy 3: 5-8 Christians call the church.


Just as the people of physical Israel in the time of Jeremiah (whose ministry was from about 626 BC to 586 BC) were sent into literal captivity in Babylon, so the people in the timeline of the New Covenant at the time of the end are sent into spiritual captivity to their own false doctrines. The Great Tribulation of Matthew 24: 21 is judgment by God for being in false doctrines, and that judgment consists of being brought into captivity to spiritual Babylon, or Christianity in false doctrines taught by the huge number of false prophets (Matthew 24: 11. II Peter 2: 1-3).
And that spiritual captivity to false doctrines taught by the huge number of false prophets, the priests and preachers of the church, is metaphorical Babylon in Revelation 17 and 18.
Revelation 18: 4 says "Come out of her, my people that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."


This is a repeat of the call of Jeremiah 50: 8 to remove out of the midst of Babylon, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, and of Jeremiah 51: 6 to flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul: be not cut off in her iniquity. In other words, Babylon as a metaphor for being in captivity to false doctrines repeats, running once in the time of the Old Covenant and again in the period of the New Covenant.
Then there is that interesting metaphoric statement in Revelation 18: 23, "And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived." Christ and his elect, the bride of Christ, are not in Babylon, not inside the camp in Hebrews 13: 11, but outside of Babylon, which is now the camp in false doctrines.


The false prophets of Ezekiel 13: 2-3, and the many false prophets of Matthew 24: 11, who deceive many bring Old Covenant Israel and then New Covenant Israel into false doctrines, and God gives them over to their false doctrines.

 

[NoHype]

Read all of Ezekiel 16 and tell me that again.

 

[tulsa 2011]

"Old Covenant Israel was changed as II Kings 21: 13, Isaiah 29: 16 and especially Jeremiah 18:1-6 predict. That prophecy of the transformation of Old Covenant Israel was fulfilled in the remnant of Israel which accepted Christ, and is seen in Romans 11: 5, or Romans 11:1-5. Those of Old Covenant Israel who rejected Christ are cut off in Romans 11:15-21."

God's everlasting covenant is with Israel, which Paul calls the Israel of God in Galatians 6: 16, to distinguish it from the Israel in Romans 9: 6-8 which is only Israel of the flesh. "

<tbody>
[TD="align: left"] "For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel:[/TD]

[TD="align: right"]<bdo dir="ltr">7</bdo>.[/TD]
[TD="align: left"]Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.[/TD]

[TD="align: right"]<bdo dir="ltr">8</bdo>.[/TD]
[TD="align: left"]That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God."

To teach that Old Covenant Israel - Israel of the flesh - remains God's everlasting covenant people is to teach another Gospel, and this other Gospel wars against the Gospel of Christ. Old Covenant Israel had to be changed - born again - to enter the kingdom of God. It became the spiritual house of I Peter 2: 5 and the chosen generation and royal priesthood of I Peter 2: 9. John 3:1 -8 is absolute truth, and cannot be altered by the dialectic, which is a quarrel against absolute truth.


The tribulation mentioned in Matthew 24: 29, which comes before the time when the sun and moon are darkened, the stars fall from heaven and the heavens shaken, metaphorically, has some of the characteristics of the threshing floor of Jeremiah 51: 33.

In the threshing floor, those deceived by the huge number of false prophets of Matthew 24: 11, II Peter 2: 1-3 and Revelation 9: 14-9, are separated from those not deceived, who come to the knowledge of the truth. Those who are deceived by the false prophets and their man made doctrines, are under the indignation of God of Isaiah 26: 20. This is a time after the falling away of II Thessalonians 2: 3-4 begins in the modern timeline.

The threshing floor is where the wheat is separated from the tares, that is, where those who have come to the knowledge of the truth (I Timothy 2: 4, II Timothy 3: 7, III John 1: 4) are separated from those who have not come to that knowledge and resist the truth, though they may think they have been born again by procedures which do not change them from the state of the natural man to spiritual new creatures.. What is the cause of people not coming to the knowledge of the truth? It can be that the Lord has not given them ears to hear the truth, and that they have been deceived by the false prophets, the priests and preachers, into believing false doctrines and the re-defined and reduced Gospel taught by these guys.

In Joel 1: 4-7 something called a nation in Joel 1: 6, and locusts, palmerworms, cankerworms and caterpillers in 1: 4 is come on the land. Joel 1: 7 says this nation, called a "he," has "laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree..." In Joel 1: 12 the vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth. Then Joel 2: 2 identifies the time when this "nation" of locusts will lay the vine waste and bark the fig tree as the end time. "A day of darkness, and of gloominess..."

The vine as a metaphor is found in John 15: 1-7, "I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing." The fig tree is Luke 13: 6-9, "A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?
And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it:
And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down. " The fig tree is Israel of the New Covenant, given new spiritual life by the "dresser of the vineyard, Jesus Christ.

So, this "nation" of locusts, this "army" of false prophets in Joel 1 and 2 attack and diminish the vine and the fig tree.

This "nation" of locusts is called the northern army in Joel 2: 20. Chapter 1 says the land became desolate because of this northern army of locusts. This "Northern Army" reminds one of the two hundred thousand thousand "army" of horsemen in Revelation 9: 13-19, who are said to "kill" the third part of men by what comes out of their mouths, by what they preach in Revelation 9: 7-9. This "army" is said to have tails like serpents in Revelation 9: 19. They are the serpents, while the locust-scorpions of Revelation 9: 1-5 have been given only the power to torment.

They are the many false prophets of Matthew 24: 11, and the false prophets among the people of II Peter 2: 1-3, who bring in damnable heresies, or false doctrines. The false prophets of II Peter 2: 3 by use of feigned words make emporeusontai of you. Emporeusontai is a verb in the future tense of the word emporos, or emporoi, as in Revelation 18: 23, which A Linguistic Key to the Greek New Testament, Volume 2, by Fritz Rienecke, on p.508 says means "...merchants who deal in foreign exports and imports, the "great ones," now the giant international corporations.

"But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not."

"Feigned" is Strong's Exhaustive Concordance number 4112, plastos, to fabricate, mold, artificial, fictitious. The words the false prophets use are fabricated to mold your spiritual condition back into that of the natural man of the flesh. Their words are not truth, and do not feed the sheep of the Lord as he demands of his shepherds. Man who remains in the flesh, which is body and mind, no matter if he is lured by the feigned words of the false prophets to believe he has had a born again experience in making an alter call, citing a prayer, or claiming to repent from sin, does not become a member of the elect.

The new English translations have to be avoided for II Peter 2: 1-3 because the Greek verb emporeusontai, is used as a metaphor, to make merchandise of you, is translated as exploit which makes it literal. The spiritual power of the metaphor is lost when the Greek verb is made literal. It is metaphoric because people are not literally merchandise. To make merchandise of them means to reduce them back down toward being mere "merchandise," back down toward the spiritual state of the natural man of I Corinthians 2: 14. The natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God.

The NIV has "In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories."

Exploiting a person is not the same as changing his spiritual condition. The metaphor in II Peter 2: 3 is about changing the spiritual state of those deceived by the false prophets, not just exploiting them.

Revelation 18: 4 which calls the people who belong to God out of New Covenant Israel in apostasy is not calling them out of some literal country, or city on earth. It is calling God's people out of what they call the church.

"For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor, it is time to thresh her: yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come." Jeremiah 51: 33

Go back to Joel, and to Joel 3: 14, "Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision." Joel 3: 14 has been used by evangelists to describe the decision of whether a person accepts Christ or not. But it is about the decision to continue in the false doctrines taught by the "army" of false prophets after the falling away of II Thessalonians 2: 3-4, or to come out of the false doctrines to the truth. II Thessalonians 2: 10 says those who do not receive the love of the truth are not saved.

"Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God." II Thessalonians 2: 3-4

Those who follow a literal "hermeneutic" often say that Paul's man of sin is a literal one man anti-Christ who appears after the pre-tribulation rapture of the dispenationalist church. But I John 4: 3 and I John 2: 18 do not describe a one man anti-Christ. Instead John talks about a spirit of anti-Christ and about many anti-Christs being in the world when he wrote. The second beast of Revelation 13: 11-18 has been called the False Prophet, but this beast represents the many false prophets of Matthew 24: 11, not one single False Prophet.

What Paul is talking about in II Thessalonians 2: 4 - the anthropos tes amartias - is not one man of sin, but a mankind or human race of sin. When the falling away happens sin becomes dominant in people claiming to belong to God and metaphorically this dominant sin then sits in the temple of God. Remember that Stephen in Acts 7: 48 says "Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands." And Paul teaches in I Corinthians 3: 16-17, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." And in I Corinthians 6: 19 he says "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?"

Remember that Christ said in Matthew 15: 24, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.?" During the tribulation of Matthew 24, which is also the valley of decision of Joel 3: 14, the threshing floor of Jeremiah 51: 33 and the indignation of the Lord in Isaiah 26: 20 is where a decision is made by the multitude to either stay in the false doctrines brought to them by the false prophets or accept the truth and have a love for the truth.

Just as a remnant of Old Covenant Israel accepted Christ (Romans 11: 5), so only a small number will come out of the broad way (Matthew 7: 13) to the narrow way of the truth. But Revelation 18: 4 in saying "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues" implies that there are some who are God's people in Babylon - the church in false doctrines - who will come out. Revelation 18: 23 says "And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee:" "Thee" is Babylon. Christ is not in Babylon. Those who have his testimony in Revelation 12: 17 are out in the wilderness. In having Christ's testimony, Christ is being formed in them. Galatians 4: 19 says "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you." And Philippians 2: 5 says "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:"

When Christ is being formed in those in the wilderness of Revelation 12: 6, 14 - those in Revelation 12: 17 who have Christ's testimony - Christ acts again in them to the "lost sheep of the house of Israel, except now its the lost sheep of New Covenant Israel in false doctrines. The salt has now lost its savour. In Matthew 5: 13 and Luke 14: 34, about the salt of the church loosing its savour, it turns out to be about a loss of cognitive clarity or intelligence, which, for the church, is loss of its spiritual intelligence and strength. Savour is from moraino, and from moros, Strong's number 3474, "dull or stupid...blockhead."

Daniel 12: 7 says "...when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished." It does not say that the end will come when the holy people are scattered, but when the power of the holy people is scattered. How do you scatter a power? Scattering a power diminishes that power. So, when the spiritual power of those claiming to belong to God is scattered, or diminished, then the end is near. For example, the people claiming to be of God - the church - now has little influence over the morals of the society. Either the preachers no longer strongly preach the truth about the Gospel and also about the righteousness of God, or they just go through the motions of doing so, but the church has no spiritual power and so cannot influence society.
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[NoHype]

You've got the spiritual Babylon concept down pretty good tulsa, but you're forgetting how God applies the Revelation Babylon concept to that "great city" there which is about Jerusalem in a fallen state for the end.

I realize how many have considered the fallen Church as the Babylon Harlot of Revelation, but that concept is only partially suggested there in the spiritual sense. The danger which Jerusalem as the Babylon Harlot reveals there for Christ's Church is about those in the Church who fall away to the events that are going to happen for the end in the city of Jerusalem, because that is where the coming Antichrist is to sit and play God and cause as many as will to believe on him in place of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The mystery of iniquity is how Satan's workers started creeping into the positions of Israel's priesthood and scribe positions back in Old Testament times so as to deceive the part of Israel that has been blinded by God per Romans 11 (i.e., the majority of Jews that still reject Christ Jesus). That mystery of iniquity continued with those who crept into the early Christian Church in Apostle Paul's days, and thereafter. Apostles Paul and Peter especially warned us about them (Acts 20:28-31; 2 Peter 2). This is why there's so many confusing doctrines of men within Christ's Churches today, and the believer on Christ must learn through His Word to discern that working of iniquity to stay in His Word with true understanding. So in reality only Israel in part has been deceived away from The Gospel while the majority of the seed of Israel were not subjected to that, until these last days.

Per the Old Testament and history, there were 2 captivities upon the children of Israel after they were established in the holy land. The Jew's captivity to Babylon for 70 years by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon was only upon the remnant of Israel that God's Word called the "house of Judah", made up of the 3 tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi, some small remnants of the ten tribes that moved south when God split Israel into two separate kingdoms, and the strangers that dwelt with them in the southern kingdom at Jerusalem/Judea.

Per 1 Kings 11 through 2 Kings 17, God's Word showed how the majority of the children of Israel dwelt in the northern kingdom of the "house of Israel" with its capital city at Samaria in the northern lands, made up of ten tribes, Ephraim, Manasseh, Naphtali, Zebulun, Asher, Gad, Simeon, Reuben, Issachar, and portions of Dan. This larger portion of Israelites were taken captive out of the holy land first by the kings of Assyria, about 120 years prior to Judah's captivity of 70 years to Babylon.

By the time of the later captivity of the southern kingdom of the "house of Judah" to Babylon the ten tribes were already gone out of the land and still in their own captivity.

Yet God prophesied in Genesis 35 & 48 how "a company of nations" would come out Jacob's loins, and "a multitude of nations" would be of Ephraim.

So where did those "multitude of nations" of Ephraim occur, because we know the nation of Israel has only ever been one nation in the middle east?

For the Bible student who reads and studies all their Bible, it will be discovered how God had an ultimate plan for the ten tribes of Israel after their captivity to Assyria and lands of the Medes to be placed under The Gospel in the new lands they were ultimately scattered to, i.e., the Christian West. That's where the majority of the children of Israel migrated to, and I'm not speaking of Jews with these either. I'm speaking of the ten tribes of the northern kingdom of the "house of Israel" that were not even present in the holy land at Christ's first coming. (the Jewish historian Josephus of 100 A.D. said the ten tribes were still scattered abroad in his days, and were a great number of people, too many to numbered). These are the ones God was speaking about through His prophet Hosea when referring to Ephraim.

In Hosea, God showed how the "house of Israel" (northern kingdom under Ephraim with its capital at Samaria) rebelled against Him with its idol worship of Baal. So He scattered them among the Gentiles per His warnings in Deut.4 & 28. He said He hedged up their paths so they would not find their way back (back to the land of promise), so they would have their full of Baal worship because of forgetting Him, and He declared them 'lo ami' (not My people). They forgot their Israelite heritage, knowledge and customs of the feasts and holy days which the Jews did not forget. The majority of them became as Gentiles, scattered among the Gentiles.

When we look at what the nations of Asia Minor and Europe were worshiping prior to Christ's first coming, we see the Baal worship of old modified with new names based on the people's new languages and branches they formed in those western nations, all of it tied to the old pagan Baal worship. Then God prophesied further in Hosea that when it was time, He would show His mercy upon them, and where it was said to them 'lo ami' (not my people), they would be told they are the sons of the Living God, 'Ami' (My people). This is where Apostle Paul quoted Hosea from in Romans 9 to the Church there concerning The Gospel of Jesus Christ.

So who all was Apostle Paul applying that Hosea Scripture to in Romans 9? Paul was applying it to both the scattered remnants of the ten tribes of Israel that dwelt among those Romans, and to the Gentiles among the Romans that also believed on Christ Jesus. The actual Hosea Scripture he quoted was specific to Ephraim and the "house of Israel" God had put Ephraim in charge over, but it would later include believing Gentiles with them, which is what Paul showed in Romans 9. So we cannot have one without the other.

What this further shows from Hosea and with Apostle Paul applying the prophecy in regard to those under The Gospel, is another pointer to where the ten tribes under Ephraim ultimately wound up, i.e., in the Christian West.

Thus the full meaning when our Lord Jesus said, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel", was especially about the ten lost tribes of Israel that would ultimately come under The Gospel after the passion of Christ in the western Christian nations, thus fulfilling God's prophecy that Jacob's seed would become "a company of nations", and to Ephraim that his seed would become "a multitude of nations". That happened after the Jews in Jerusalem rejected Christ Jesus and had Him crucified, with The Gospel then being preached to those western nations of history next.

So when many think of the Jews today, even those of the Jews that have believed on Christ Jesus, that still is the smaller remnant of the seed of Israel, and not representative of the lost sheep of the house of Israel which the larger group of ten tribes better represent.

 

[tulsa 2011]

After the Cross and the Day of Pentecost Old Covenant Israel of the flesh was no longer the Israel of God. Israel became the spiritual house of I Peter 2: 5 and the chosen generation, royal priesthood and holy nation or people of I Peter 2: 9. Paul in Romans 9: 6-8 teaches that "They are not all Israel, which are of Israel." "They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God. Romans 9: 8.


In Romans 2: 17-29 Paul teaches about how the Jew who is only a Jew of the flesh is no longer a real Jew. "But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly..." He is talking about the same people when he refers to them as Jews in Romans 2 and as Israel in Romans 9: 6-8. All Israel which before claimed to be God's chosen people had to become reborn in Christ, and this included the Ten Lost tribes of Israel.

"Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

<tbody>
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: left"]That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.[/TD]

[TD="align: right"]<bdo dir="ltr"></bdo>[/TD]
[TD="align: left"]Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again" John 3: 5-7

No one is born into the spirit by water, but by the Spirit through Jesus Christ. And everyone must be born again to enter into the kingdom of God, which is within. Luke 17: 21

All those not born again in Christ remain in the spiritual state of the natural man, whether Gentile, Jew or member of the Ten Tribes. I Corinthians 2: 14 says the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit, and cannot know them.

"When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not , then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart" (Matthew 13:19).

Focusing on Old Covenant Israel as remaining now the chosen people of God is not understanding the word of the kingdom in which Old Covenant Israel was changed in Christ. Those of Old Covenant Israel who rejected Christ in Romans 11: 17-21 were cut off. Anyone can come to Christ but the chosen people based on the flesh is over.

Christ taught that "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." John 10: 10. And when James and John wanted Christ to call fire down on a village in Samaria because they rejected Christ, Christ told them "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." Luke 9:52-56

Galatians 4: 19 says "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you."

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:" Philippians 2: 5

Having the spiritual life that Christ is talking about in John 10: 10 is not just a matter of getting saved by making an alter call before a large congregation and experiencing that group dynamic. Acquiring that spiritual life Christ promises comes about when Christ is formed in you. In Colossians 1: 27 Paul writes about God making known that which "...is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."

In being formed in you, Christ creates "you" as your spirit, by the Holy Spirit. Flesh cannot inherit the Kingdom of God - I Corinthians 15: 50. Christ lives in your spirit. Yet Paul talks about having the "mind" of Christ in us. The human body and mind are the two parts that cannot inherit the kingdom of God. And yet Ephesians 2:5-7 says " Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved 6. And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7. That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus."

Christ said in Matthew 8: 28, "Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead." Those who are physically dead cannot bury the physically dead. So in Matthew 8: 28 Christ is talking about those who are spiritually dead. Christ came to being life, primarily spiritual life, but he also said in Luke 9: 56, "For the son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." Those who are born again, transformed in Christ, and he is beginning to be formed in them, have Life. But those who reject Christ and are of the spirit of anti-Christ are of Death. They are also fixated in the flesh of man.

Christ said in John 10: 16, "...and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd." Romans 12: 5 says "So we, being many, are one body in Christ..."

But - John Darby said that "The Church has sought to settle itself here, but it has no place on the earth... [Though] making a most constructive parenthesis, it forms no part of the regular order of God's earthly plans, but is merely an interruption of them to give a fuller character and meaning to them..."

John. N. Darby, 'The Character of Office in The Present Dispensation' Collected Writings., Eccl. I, Vol. I, p. 94.

"Them" are all physical Israel. The church, for Darby exists to "give fuller character and meaning to all physical Israel." Darby, known as the Father of dispensationalism, thought that the purpose of the Christian church, the ekklesia as a meeting, assembly or congregation of Israel reborn in Christ, the Israel of God, made into The Body of Christ like the Catholic capital C Church, was to honor all physical Israel. The dispensationalists say that God's people the Jews are earthy. They are involved in physical and literal things, like the blood sacrifice of animals, a literal bloodline from Abraham, circumcision, and a physical temple building.

Lewis S. Chafer, the founder of Dallas Theological Seminary, said that:
"The dispensationalist believes that throughout the ages God is pursuing two distinct purposes: one related to the earth with earthly people and earthly objectives involved which is Judaism; while the other is related to heaven with heavenly people and heavenly objectives involved, which is Christianity."

Lewis Sperry Chafer, Dispensationalism (Dallas, Seminary Press, 1936), p. 107

By "God's earthly plans" John Darby meant physical Israel.

But Chafer also says "Israel is an eternal nation, heir to an eternal land, with an eternal kingdom, on which David rules from an eternal throne, that is, on earth and distinct from the church who will be in heaven."

Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology (Dallas, Dallas Seminary Press, 1975), Vol. 4. pp. 315-323.

John Darby, C.I. Scofield and their followers - all false prophets - created what is now a tradition of men which leads people to fail to understand and accept as absolute truth the words of the kingdom of God (Matthew 13: 19). The followers of Darby teach a Gospel, but it is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its entirety.
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Part of the confusion created by dispensationalism is their teaching that God now has two peoples, Israel and the Church. Israel, they insist, must always mean Old Covenant Israel, not the Israel of God of Galatians 6: 16. The ekklesia as the meeting, assembly or congregation of reborn Israel was re-defined starting with the Roman Catholic church, later by some of the leaders of the Reformation at a somewhat later time than that of William Tyndale (1494–<wbr>1536), and then by the dispensationalists.

The basic meaning of ekklesia is an assembly, gathering or congregation, a common noun. But after Tyndale in his first English translation from the Greek Textus Receptus for the New Testament used congregation for ekklesia. English Protestants changed that and used church instead.

Theodore Beza emphasized the authority of the church and of the ordained clergy more than did Calvin. Encyclopædia Britannica at Theodore Beza (French theologian) -- Encyclopedia Britannica says "In most matters, he reiterated Calvin’s views, though with greater stress on ecclesiastical discipline and rigid obedience to authority."

In 1565 Beza published his Greek New Testament, in which he translated ekklesia as church. The English protestants who were in Geneva to escape from the Catholic Queen Bloody Mary were influenced by Beza and translated ekklesia consistently as church. The Geneva Bible consistently translated ekklesia as church.

This is a mistake because for almost all other Greek words the Geneva Bible, like the King James Version following it, used the word for word rule of translation. This rule means that any Greek word must be translated into an Enbglish word closest in meaning to the Greek word. The Geneva Bible translators did not do that for ekklesia, but used an English word that had different and even ambiguous meanings.

Church was derived from English words such as cirice, cyrice, chiriche, churiche, chereche, circe, cyrce, chyrce, cirke, meaning of the lord, that is, a pagan lord, a pagan lord's house or the Greek enchantress circe. This is from the Oxford English Dictionary: : Y: The English word "CHURCH" comes from CIRCE!! - §1. ÊÎÍÑÈËÈÓÌ

It is interesting that the Geneva Bible translates ekklesia correctly in Acts 9: 39, saying "But if ye enquire any thing concerning other matters, it shall be determined in a lawful assembly." The King James also has assembly for ekklesia in Acts 9: 39. What is the contextual or grammatical reason to translate ekklesia as assembly in Acts 9: 39 and in all other verses as word church?