WHAT DOES IT MEAN , ARE THE 12 IN, OR OUT OF THE

thomas15 said:

I have a simple question for Dan Perez.

Here goes...

Those who are redeemed in times before Jesus, are they redeemed unto eternal life as are those of the Body of Christ and if they are, what paid for their redemption?

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Pepper77 said:

I understand you only believe the prison epistles were written to the church. But how do you explain Paul saying he was a minister of the new covenant in 2Cor 3? That would make him an apostle to the Jews, not the Gentiles according to what you are saying, since the covenants belonged only to Israel, according to what you are saying. I am currently going to a Mid-Acts church. We celebrate the Lord’s supper and they do not teach that we are living under the new covenant either. Why are we celebrating the Lord’s supper then? Their answer made no sense to me. I’m not sure I can even explain it.

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ExTiff said:

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

The green text is Paul. The red text is Jesus. The New Covenant is for everyone with equivalent faith to Abraham's, who looks for their salvation in Jesus Christ, who is the Mediator of the Covenant of Grace between all repentent sinners and God. It matters not if they are Jew, Greek, Hotentot, male, female or unsure.
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ExTiff said:

For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward, but if not of my own will, I am still entrusted with a stewardship. What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.
For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law.

Paul was given nothing different than any of the rest of us sinners. A New Covenant. A Better Covenant. An Improved Covenant. A Ratified Covenant, in the blood of Christ. A Covenant relevant to Gentiles, Jews Greeks, Apostles, women, men, everybody in the world.

Paul here in 1 Cor. 9:17 is merely stating that he has an obligation to be an embassador for Christ when he preaches the message of reconciliation that has been declared by God between Himself and a world of sinners. The same also applies to each and every one of us who have committed to obedience to Jesus Christ and so follow The Way. WE have been entrusted with the message of reconciliation, which is the Gospel of 'Good News'. We have no choice but to tell others of God's forgiveness and God's desire to be recognised as their Savior. We who have received forgivness must forgive others, we who have accepted the terms of The New Covenant, must preach it as we received it, FREELY to all who will listen. Those are the terms of The Covenant. (Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us).

Splitting hairs over semantics, (covenant/dispensation/stewardship/testament etc), does nothing to change the facts of the atonement being equally available to ALL who 'call upon the name of The Lord'. Acts 2:21, Heb. 10:10.
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ExTiff said:

Who says "There has to be a verse". Scripture does not have to work that way just because you think it should. There are many verses in both old and New Testaments which describe what God's intentions are toward the human race, and also many verses describing exactly how Jesus Christ fulfilled God's intentions.

The Christian Church is the continuation of the Church of Israel.

The Christian Church is not a new Church, but identical with that of Israel. There is but one olive tree and it lives on (Rom. 11:6-36.). The Christian Church is founded on the same covenant and on the same Gospel: the promise of redemption by Christ. Because of the continuity of the covenant the new Israel is grafted into the old, and there is now but a single people.

This doctrine, according to which the Church is today founded on the Abrahamic covenant - in other words, that the plan of salvation revealed in the Gospel was revealed to Abraham and to the saints of the Old Testament, and that they were saved in exactly the same manner as has been the case with everyone since the coming of Christ, namely, by faith in Christ-this doctrine is not revealed to us in Scripture in an incidental manner. It forms an integral part of the very substance of the Gospel. It is present in the teaching of our Lord, who came to fulfil and not to abolish the promise (Lk. 24:27), and who bade those who interrogated Him to search the Scriptures of the Old Testament if they wished to understand what He, the Christ, was teaching.

The Apostles did just the same. The Christians at Berea were praised because they examined the Scriptures every day in order to verify whether the doctrines taught by the Apostles accorded with this infallible norm (Acts 17:11). These messengers of Christ made constant reference to the Old Testament in support of their teaching. Paul said that the Gospel which he preached had already been taught in the law and the prophets (Rom. 3:21-31). He declared to the Gentiles that they were grafted into the old olive-tree so that they might partake of its root and sap (Rom. 11:17).

It is thus entirely illegitimate to maintain that there is an essential contrast between the New Testament covenant of grace and that same covenant in the Old Testament. The Gospel covenant of grace is the prolongation of the Abrahamic covenant. The Christian Church is the continuation of the Church of Israel.
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ExTiff said:

So I guess you don't believe in the Trinity or the Rapture either on the grounds you are basing your theology upon. Perhaps you could show me the Bible references to those words.
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ExTiff said:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, But no mention of the word 'Trinity', yet you accept the doctrine presumably. You correctly state that the word 'Rapture' is also absent from scripture, yet for some inexplicable reason your logic forces you to demand that the words 'Covenant of Grace' should appear in scripture in order for there to be such a thing.

Man in the Covenant of Grace
For the sake of clearness we distinguish between the covenant of redemption and the covenant of grace. The two are so closely related that they can be and sometimes are, considered as one. The former is the eternal foundation of the latter.

The Covenant of Redemption. This is also called "the counsel of peace," a name derived from Zechariah 6:13. It is a covenant between the Father, representing the Trinity, and the Son as the representative of the elect.

The scriptural basis for it.
a. It is clear that the plan of redemption was included in God's eternal decree, Ephsians 1:4 ff.; 3:11; 11 Timothy 1:9. Christ speaks of promises made to Him before He came into the world, and repeatedly refers to a commission which He received from the Father, John 5:30, John 5:43; John 6:38-40; John 17:4-12. He is evidently dently a covenant head, Romans 5:12-21; I Corinthians 15:22. In Psalm 2:7-9 the parties of the covenant are mentioned and a promise is indicated, and in Psalm 40:7, 8 the Messiah expresses His readiness to do the Father's will in becoming a sacrifice for sin.

The Son in the covenant of redemption.
b. Christ is not only the Head but also the Surety of the covenant of redemption, Hebrews 7:22. A surety is one who takes upon himself the legal obligations of another. Christ took the place of the sinner, to bear the penalty of sin and to meet the demands of the law for His people. By so doing He became the last Adam, a life-giving spirit, I Corinthians 15:45. For Christ this covenant was a covenant of works, in which He met the requirements of the original covenant, but for us it is the eternal foundation of the covenant of grace. Its benefits are limited to the elect. They only obtain the redemption and inherit the glory which Christ merited for sinners.

c. Requirements and promises in the covenant of redemption.
(1) The Father required of the Son that He should assume human nature with its present infirmities, though without sin, Galatians 4:4-5; Hebrews 2:10-15; Hebrews 4:15; that He should place Himself under the law to pay the penalty and to merit eternal life for the elect, Psalm 40:8; John 10:11; Galatians 1:4; Galatians 4:4-5; and that He should apply His merits to His people by the renewing operation of the Holy Spirit, thus securing the consecration of their lives to God, John 10:28; John 17:19-22; Hebrews 5:7-9.
(2) And the Father promised the Son that He would prepare for Him a body, Hebrews 10:5, would anoint Him with the Holy Spirit, Isaiah 42:1; Isaiah 61:1; John 3:34, would support Him in His work, Isaiah 42:6-7; Luke 22:43, would deliver Him from the power of death and place Him at His own right hand, Psalm 16:8-11; Phillipians 2:9-11, would enable Him to endow the Spirit for the formation of the Church, John 14:26; John 15:26; John 16:13-14, would draw and preserve the elect, John 6:37-45, and would grant Him a numerous seed, Psalm 22:27; Psalm 72:17.

Its Requirements.
The characteristics of the covenant. The covenant of grace is a gracious covenant, because it is a fruit and manifestation of the grace of God to sinners. It is grace from start to finish. It is also an eternal and inviolable covenant, to which God will always be true, though men may break it. Even in its widest extent it includes only a part of mankind, and is therefore particular. If its New Testament dispensation is called universal, this is done only in view of the fact that it is not limited to the Jews, as the Old Testament dispensation was. This covenant is also characterized by unity. It is essentially the same in all dispensations, though the form of its administration changes. The essential promise is the same, Genesis 17:7; Hebrews 8:10, the gospel is the same, Galatians 3:8, the requirement of faith is the same, Galatians 3:6-7, and the Mediator is the same, Hebrews 13:8. The covenant is both conditional and unconditional. It is conditional because it is dependent on the merits of Christ and because the enjoyment of the life it offers depends on the exercise of faith. But it is unconditional in the sense that it does not depend on any merits of man. And, finally, it is testamentary as a free and sovereign disposition on the part of God. It is called a 'testament' in Hebrews 9:16-17. This name stresses the facts:
(1) that it is a free arrangement of God;
(2) that its New Testament dispensation was ushered in by the death of Christ; and
(3) that in it God gives what He demands. The covenant of grace differs from the covenant of works in that it has a mediator. Christ is represented as the Mediator of the new covenant, 1 Timothy 2:5; Hebrews 8:6; Hebrews 9:15; Hebrews 12:24. He is Mediator, not only merely in the sense that He intervenes between God and man to sue for peace and to persuade to it, but in the sense that He is armed with full power to do all that is necessary for the actual establishment of peace. As our Surety, Hebrews 7:22, He assumes our guilt, pays the penalty of sin, fulfills the law, and thus restores peace.
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