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45 results for “Paul”
Clear searchThe gathering of the elect, one taken and one left, and Paul's revealed mystery
…he 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, His coming in the clouds, and…
Read article →Marvin W. Meyer · Historical sourcebook · 1987
…ient Mysteries because it gives an excellent view of the Gentile religious world in which Paul preached. Rather than leaving the mystery cults as vague names in a textbook, Meyer lets their surviving texts show what their adherents practised, sought, feared, and hoped for. For th…
View recommendation →Which Gospel does the Qur'an affirm?
…four canonical Gospels, by contrast, are narratives about Jesus written by later authors. Paul's letters are later still and cannot simply be identified with a book given to Jesus. An informed Muslim may also argue that the Qur'an itself accuses some among the People of the Book…
Read article →Israel's Messiah, Israel's Scriptures, and a gospel for the world
…day, presented at the temple, and raised in obedience to the law of Moses (Luke 2:21-24). Paul summarises His historical setting: "God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law." —Galatians 4:4 He attended the synagogue, went up to Jerusalem for the feasts, celebrat…
Read article →Christ the promised Seed, Gentile inheritance, and Paul's final blessing
…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 says that the promises were made to Abraham and his singular Seed, C…
Read article →Circumcision of the heart and the identity of Paul's inward Jew
…s 2:28-29 Make Christians "Spiritual Jews"? Circumcision of the heart and the identity of Paul's inward Jew Paul's description of the inward Jew is often treated as a decisive redefinition of Israel: "For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, whic…
Read article →Why the final seven is unfinished, future, and centred upon Israel and Jerusalem
…iel's abomination of desolation and places it at the head of an unparalleled tribulation. Paul describes a lawless ruler who exalts himself in the sacred place and is destroyed by Christ's appearing. Revelation returns to Daniel's imagery and repeatedly uses periods of forty-two…
Read article →Election within Abraham's family, the believing remnant, and the future of the nation
…ile unbelieving ethnic Israel no longer possesses a distinct covenant identity or future. Paul certainly denies that physical descent guarantees salvation. He distinguishes outward privilege from participation in God's saving purpose and traces that principle through Isaac and Ja…
Read article →The olive tree, the natural branches, and the limits of the metaphor
…has disappeared. That argument gives the metaphor real weight, but it moves too quickly. Paul does not say that Gentiles are grafted into Israel. He says that they are grafted into an olive tree, among existing branches, and made participants in its root and fatness. The identit…
Read article →Unity in Christ and distinction in God's purpose
…s one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, and one baptism (Ephesians 4:4-5). Paul is equally direct in Galatians: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." —Galatians 3:28 E…
Read article →Responding to five common criticisms without defending what Scripture does not require
…s surprised God or that the Church was improvised after Israel ruined His preferred plan. Paul describes the Church as part of God's eternal purpose: "According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." —Ephesians 3:11 The mystery was hidden in earlier a…
Read article →The crucifixion in history, Scripture and the Qur'an
…ucifixion was not a late Christian addition The earliest surviving Christian writings are Paul's letters. Their testimony does not present the cross as a legend which emerged after generations of development. Paul reminds the Corinthians of a message he had already delivered to t…
Read article →What 'yea and Amen' in Christ means for Israel and the covenants
…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 all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us." —2 Corinthians 1:20…
Read article →Why apantēsis does not settle the timing of the rapture
…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 the air" (1 Thessalonians 4:17). The word translated "to meet" is apantēsis. It is often argu…
Read article →Abraham, Lot, divine wrath, and a pattern that must be used carefully
…levance. Peter makes deliverance and reserved judgement a continuing theological pattern. Paul says believers are not appointed to wrath. Other passages must establish the nature, scope, and timing of the rapture itself. Used this way, the Sodom account is neither a decorative il…
Read article →Fulfilment in Christ, the inclusion of the Gentiles, and Israel's future mercy
…romises to Israel cease to be promises to Israel. The New Testament gives us its own rule Paul states the relationship between Christ, Israel's promises, and Gentile blessing with unusual precision: "Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of…
Read article →What the Father's love for the Son reveals about God
…created, then creation would answer a deficiency in God. Scripture rejects that picture. Paul declares: "God that made the world and all things therein ... Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all th…
Read article →The event is explicit; the real dispute is its timing
…may disagree seriously about the second question. The first should not be controversial. Paul describes the event directly. "For the Lord himself shall 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…
Read article →The man of sin, the last trumpet, the first resurrection, and the last day
…es 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 Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him... Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come…
Read article →Why Israel's failure cannot make the word of God fail
…of God. Both show that He means what He says. Israel's unbelief cannot cancel God's truth Paul confronts the principle early in Romans: "For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a…
Read article →Conditional blessing, irrevocable promise, and fulfilment in Christ
…12). Nor does the passing of the Mosaic administration cancel promises which preceded it. Paul argues that the law, given centuries later, could not disannul the covenant previously confirmed by God (Galatians 3:16-18). Sinai explains Israel's judgement. It does not provide a mec…
Read article →A history of interpretation, polemic, and forgotten tension
…entile believers could be received without circumcision and submission to the Mosaic law. Paul taught the full equality of Jew and Gentile in Christ. He also warned Gentile believers not to boast against Israel's natural branches and anticipated those branches being grafted into…
Read article →Signs, expectancy, and the event the Church is told to await
…coming of the Lord draweth nigh" and "the judge standeth before the door" (James 5:8-9). Paul includes himself among those who may be "alive and remain" at the Lord's descent (1 Thessalonians 4:15, 17). These statements do not prove that the writers knew Christ would return in t…
Read article →Seeing God, bodily resurrection, and life in the renewed creation
…vity considered by themselves. The heart of eternal life is God dwelling with His people. Paul contrasts our present partial knowledge with the future: “now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12). John says that when Christ appears, “we shall…
Read article →Divine judgement, the character of God, and the promise of escape
…lious world through acts authorised and directed from heaven. "Not appointed us to wrath" Paul writes: "For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ." —1 Thessalonians 5:9 The immediate context concerns the Day of the Lord arriving as a…
Read article →The covenant son and the sacrifice that points to Christ
…ionship to Ishmael. It identifies the line through which the calling and promise proceed. Paul quotes it directly: "Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called" (Romans 9:7). Physical descent from Abraham never made…
Read article →The question reaches beyond prophecy to the faithfulness of God
…lem came under judgement; and the gospel went with astonishing fruit to the Gentiles. Yet Paul would not allow Israel's unbelief to become proof that God had discarded Israel: "I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abrah…
Read article →What God's faithfulness to Israel means for everyone who trusts His promises
…tiles enter. We do. The question is whether our entrance requires Israel's disappearance. Paul's olive tree does not replace every natural branch with wild ones and rename the tree after the newcomers. Wild branches are grafted among the believing natural branches and warned not…
Read article →The peace Christ gives in a troubled world
…to remembrance. He directs us beyond the changing circumstance to the unchanging Saviour. Paul later wrote: "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." —Philippians 4:6 Prayer is not a perform…
Read article →Why the Trinity is not polytheism—and why Christians confess one God
…e is no God beside me” (Isaiah 45:5). Jesus affirms Israel's confession (Mark 12:29), and Paul writes, “there is none other God but one” (1 Corinthians 8:4). The Trinity was not developed to escape those declarations. It protects them. The Son is not a second deity alongside the…
Read article →Sources behind Qur’anic narratives
…lms are not historically unreliable merely because they do not read like Samuel or Kings. Paul’s epistles contain relatively little continuous biography of Jesus because biography is not their purpose. But genre explains the absence of historical apparatus; it does not manufactur…
Read article →Why a loaded label does not settle the question
…ilently, that believers disappear without an event, or that nothing extraordinary occurs. Paul describes 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 Scrip…
Read article →Not escape from the body, but its redemption
…than a human being. Christians do have a real hope beyond death before the resurrection. Paul desired to depart and be with Christ, which he said was "far better" (Philippians 1:23). To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). Death cannot sepa…
Read article →Regathering, national rebirth, and the spiritual renewal still to come
…rael back nationally is not to say that the nation has already been restored spiritually. Paul describes Israel in the present age as being, with respect to the gospel, "enemies for your sakes," but with respect to election, "beloved for the fathers' sakes" (Romans 11:28). Both s…
Read article →Two accounts of judgement, mercy, and the sinner's hope before God
…If sin creates true guilt, adding later achievements cannot rewrite the past. This is why Paul does not ask how Abraham accumulated enough merit. He says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness” (Romans 4:3). David describes the blessedness of the pe…
Read article →Christianity, Islam and the verdict of the evidence
…gious controversy, public procession, witnesses, execution method, burial and empty tomb. Paul preserves an early summary of the apostolic proclamation: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scripture…
Read article →One Messiah, one gospel, and God's continuing purpose for Israel
…esently remains outside that body in unbelief, except for the remnant which believes. Yet Paul continues to call the unbelieving nation Israel, distinguishes it from the Gentiles, and describes it as beloved because of the fathers. The distinction is therefore real, but it is not…
Read article →What Jesus promised the apostles about Israel's future
…om The Twelve are not the only redeemed people promised responsibility in Christ's reign. Paul tells the saints that they will judge the world and angels (1 Corinthians 6:2-3). Revelation describes those who share in the first resurrection as priests of God and of Christ who "sha…
Read article →What mercy, holiness and the cross reveal about God
…opitiation. The God who gives rain to His enemies gives His Son for their reconciliation. Paul expresses the movement through a deliberate sequence: "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly" (Romans 5:6). "But God commendeth his love toward…
Read article →Defining the position before testing it
…ohn the Baptist denied that physical ancestry could shield the unrepentant (Matthew 3:9). Paul distinguished the children of the flesh from the children of promise (Romans 9:6-8). Every Jewish person, like every Gentile, must believe in Christ. None of these truths is under dispu…
Read article →Earth-dwellers, heaven-dwellers, and the literary structure of the Apocalypse
…forty-two months. These are Danielic and Israelite markers, not the ordinary language of Paul's body of Christ. Nor does the Spirit abandon the earth. He gave life and empowered servants before Pentecost and can do so after the Church's present formation is complete. A change in…
Read article →A forensic reading of Christ's Olivet Discourse
…rn, but the discourse does not identify this event as the resurrection and transformation Paul reveals for those "in Christ". Clue one: the setting is Judea The discourse begins at the temple. The disciples point to its buildings; Jesus foretells their destruction; and they ask a…
Read article →A sign of Israel's renewal, not Israel's disappearance
…at Israel's apostasy was not total; God had reserved a remnant who had not bowed to Baal. Paul applies that principle to his own day: "Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace." —Romans 11:5 The earliest Church was born from tha…
Read article →The positive argument of the whole series, brought together
…ceives His people to Himself, taking them to the Father's house He has prepared for them. Paul later says that when Christ appears, believers will "appear with him in glory" (Colossians 3:4). Revelation presents the Bride prepared in heaven before heaven opens and Christ rides fo…
Read article →Labour, purpose, and faithfulness in a fallen world
…e should make us grateful before it makes us impressive. Honest labour provides and gives Paul connects work with more than personal advancement: "Let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth." —Ephesians 4:28 The fo…
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