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38 results for “One God”
Clear searchOne Messiah, one gospel, and God's continuing purpose for Israel
The Unshaken Truth of God's Promises One Messiah, one gospel, and God's continuing purpose for Israel This series began with a question: has the Church permanently replaced Israel in the purpose of God? The answe…
Read article →Why the Trinity is not polytheism—and why Christians confess one God
Not Three Gods Why the Trinity is not polytheism—and why Christians confess one God The Trinity is often rejected before it is accurately defined. “The Father is God, Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit…
Read article →Conditional blessing, irrevocable promise, and fulfilment in Christ
Has God Abandoned Israel? What Do the Covenants Say? Conditional blessing, irrevocable promise, and fulfilment in Christ Israel broke God's law, rejected the prophets, and nationally refused its…
Read article →Why Israel's failure cannot make the word of God fail
God's Unfailing Faithfulness Why Israel's failure cannot make the word of God fail Israel's history presents a severe test of theology. God chose the nation, gave it His law, sent it prophet…
Read article →The question reaches beyond prophecy to the faithfulness of God
…urch: Why This Series Matters The question reaches beyond prophecy to the faithfulness of God Has the Church replaced Israel in the purpose of God? Some Christians answer yes, although they may prefer words such as fulfilled, transformed, or expanded. They believe that Israel's p…
Read article →What God's faithfulness to Israel means for everyone who trusts His promises
No Shadow of Turning What God's faithfulness to Israel means for everyone who trusts His promises This series has examined covenants, prophecies, apostles, thrones, tribes, branches, seeds, kingdoms, and the difficul…
Read article →Christ the promised Seed, Gentile inheritance, and Paul's final blessing
Are Abraham's Seed and the Israel of God the Church? Christ the promised Seed, Gentile inheritance, and Paul's final blessing Galatians contains two of the strongest arguments for identifying the Church as Israel. First, Paul s…
Read article →What Jesus promised the apostles about Israel's future
Twelve Thrones and Twelve Tribes What Jesus promised the apostles about Israel's future Peter once asked the question which many faithful disciples have quietly wondered: what will those who sacrifice…
Read article →Unity in Christ and distinction in God's purpose
Are Israel and the Church Really the Same? Unity in Christ and distinction in God's purpose The New Testament teaches a unity so profound that it would have startled the ancient world. In Christ, Jewish and Gentile believers are reconciled to God in one body. Both pos…
Read article →The gathering of the elect, one taken and one left, and Paul's revealed mystery
Does Matthew 24 Place the Rapture after the Tribulation? The gathering of the elect, one taken and one left, and Paul's revealed mystery Matthew 24 contains the most direct Gospel objection to a pretribulation rapture. Jesus describes Great Tribulation, cosmic disturbance, H…
Read article →What 'yea and Amen' in Christ means for Israel and the covenants
Do All God's Promises Transfer to the Church? What "yea and Amen" in Christ means for Israel and the covenants Paul makes one of the most comprehensive statements about the promises of God: "For al…
Read article →Seeing God, bodily resurrection, and life in the renewed creation
Is the Beatific Vision the Whole Christian Hope? Seeing God, bodily resurrection, and life in the renewed creation The beatific vision is the Christian teaching that the redeemed will see God and find their perfect happiness in Him. It draws upon…
Read article →The olive tree, the natural branches, and the limits of the metaphor
…into Israel and have therefore become Israel? The conclusion may appear obvious: there is one tree, believing Jews and Gentiles are branches within it, and unbelieving Jewish branches have been removed. Surely the tree is now the Church, the Church is Israel, and the distinction…
Read article →Abraham, Lot, divine wrath, and a pattern that must be used carefully
Does God Remove the Righteous before He Judges? Abraham, Lot, divine wrath, and a pattern that must be used carefully When Abraham learns that judgement is approaching Sodom, he asks one of Scrip…
Read article →Regathering, national rebirth, and the spiritual renewal still to come
…phecy. It does force an important question: how should we read the many passages in which God promises to preserve Israel as a nation, gather its scattered people, restore them to the land, cleanse them, pour out His Spirit, and bring them under Messiah? The biblical pattern is n…
Read article →Two accounts of judgement, mercy, and the sinner's hope before God
The Scales and the Cross Two accounts of judgement, mercy, and the sinner's hope before God How will I stand before God? The question reaches deeper than religious labels. We know that our actions matter, that evil deserves judgement, and that our own record is not clean. Many…
Read article →Fulfilment in Christ, the inclusion of the Gentiles, and Israel's future mercy
…ion, regathering, cleansing, the kingdom of David's Son, and a restored relationship with God. A strong supersessionist response does not simply deny those passages. It argues that the New Testament teaches us how they were always intended to be fulfilled. The argument runs like…
Read article →The wicked husbandmen, the fruit-bearing nation, and what Jesus said afterwards
…persessionism more directly than Matthew 21:43: "Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." —Matthew 21:43 The language is unmistakably judicial. Something is taken away, another people receives…
Read article →Defining the position before testing it
…substitute. The discussion should therefore begin with a definition which an informed opponent could recognise. Supersessionism is the view that the Church has permanently succeeded Israel as the covenant people of God, so that national Israel no longer possesses a distinct futu…
Read article →A sign of Israel's renewal, not Israel's disappearance
…(Exodus 24:4). Twelve men represented the tribes when the land was searched, and twelve stones were taken from Jordan as a memorial when Israel entered it (Numbers 13:1-16; Joshua 4:1-9). The tribes were not merely an administrative convenience. Together they represented the cove…
Read article →Divine judgement, the character of God, and the promise of escape
Is the Church Appointed to the Tribulation's Wrath? Divine judgement, the character of God, and the promise of escape The claim that the Church is not appointed to wrath is sometimes answered too quickly. Christians plainly suffer. Jesus promised tribulation in the world. The…
Read article →How an openly transmitted text survived copying, criticism, and centuries of examination
…ination Christians sometimes hear a sweeping objection: the Bible may once have contained God's word, but generations of copying changed it so thoroughly that nobody can now know what it originally said. That claim sounds formidable until we ask how the biblical text was actually…
Read article →Why the final seven is unfinished, future, and centred upon Israel and Jerusalem
…a time". The question is whether these are disconnected crises or the developing parts of one prophetic structure. If the correlations hold, the New Testament Tribulation is the still-future completion of Daniel's seventieth week. Seventy sevens for Daniel's people and city Danie…
Read article →Responding to five common criticisms without defending what Scripture does not require
…ns before it is defined. It allegedly began with John Nelson Darby, turns the Church into God's failed contingency plan, ignores the fulfilment of prophecy in AD 70, baptises modern politics, and restores animal sacrifices in competition with the cross. Some dispensationalists ha…
Read article →What the historical evidence proves—and what it does not
…way A sermon commonly attributed to Pseudo-Ephraem says that "all the saints and elect of God are gathered, prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord". The work's precise author, original language, and dating are debated. It must not be cited simply as E…
Read article →Why apantēsis does not settle the timing of the rapture
…ean an Immediate Return to Earth? Why apantēsis does not settle the timing of the rapture One of the most sophisticated objections to pretribulationism centres on a single Greek noun. Paul says that living believers will be caught up with the resurrected dead "to meet the Lord in…
Read article →Matthew, the Hebrew word almah, and a sign whose meaning reaches beyond Ahaz
…oman of marriageable age and is compatible with—often suggestive of—virginity. The word alone neither proves Matthew's complete case nor excludes his rendering. The Greek translation existed before Matthew Matthew did not invent the Greek word parthenos for Isaiah 7:14. The Jewis…
Read article →Circumcision of the heart and the identity of Paul's inward Jew
…Jew is often treated as a decisive redefinition of Israel: "For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the lette…
Read article →The event is explicit; the real dispute is its timing
…descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be wit…
Read article →The man of sin, the last trumpet, the first resurrection, and the last day
…on event "the first resurrection". John 6 promises to raise believers "at the last day". None is trivial. None requires the abandonment of pretribulationism. Must the man of sin appear before our gathering? Paul writes: "Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jes…
Read article →A history of interpretation, polemic, and forgotten tension
…story of interpretation, polemic, and forgotten tension Supersessionism did not appear in one moment through one theologian. It developed as the Church became increasingly Gentile, separated socially from Jewish communities, interpreted the destruction of Jerusalem as lasting dis…
Read article →Signs, expectancy, and the event the Church is told to await
…Him. The distinction matters. An event can be certain and constantly expected without anyone being authorised to calculate its date. The New Testament repeatedly directs believers towards Christ Himself: "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God…
Read article →Why a loaded label does not settle the question
…the Lord descending “with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). Nothing secret there. The real question is whether Scripture distinguishes Christ coming for His Church from His later return with His saints. That question cann…
Read article →Israel's Messiah, Israel's Scriptures, and a gospel for the world
…obscure the world of the New Testament itself. The New Testament is the story of Israel's God fulfilling Israel's Scriptures through Israel's Messiah, first proclaimed by Jewish witnesses in Jerusalem and then carried to the nations. Gentiles do not enter by replacing that story.…
Read article →Election within Abraham's family, the believing remnant, and the future of the nation
…ightforward. Physical descent from Jacob no longer identifies the Israel which matters to God. True Israel consists of the children of promise: everyone who believes in Christ, whether Jewish or Gentile. The Church is therefore the Israel within Israel, while unbelieving ethnic I…
Read article →Earth-dwellers, heaven-dwellers, and the literary structure of the Apocalypse
…nt that the word church disappears after Revelation 3 is often stated as though silence alone proves a rapture between chapters 3 and 4. It does not. A word count cannot establish a doctrine which the narrative never supports. The silence is nevertheless significant when placed w…
Read article →A forensic reading of Christ's Olivet Discourse
…at sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." —Matthew 24:29, 31 Few passages in prophetic Scripture generate more debate than Matthew 24. At the centre of that debate stands an apparently simple questio…
Read article →The positive argument of the whole series, brought together
…whole series, brought together The case for a pretribulation rapture should not rest upon one disputed word, one prophetic chart, or one passage made to carry more than it says. It is a cumulative and comparative case: which timing best explains all the biblical data together wit…
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