THE FIVE GREATEST BIBLE MISUNDERSTANDINGS - Part One (GUEST POST by DAVID S. DAVENPORT)

It comes as a surprise -- indeed for some people a significant shock -- to find out that Jesus Christ's stated mission was not to "offer salvation to anyone who walked up to him and asked” during his 3-year earthly ministry. Nor did he “start” Christianity during his earthly ministry as is taught in the vast majority of modern evangelical churches today.

According to all Bible prophecy to that point, he came to FULFILL JUDAISM rather than to begin a new religion. How do we know this? Because Jesus himself said so:

Matthew 10:5,6: “These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into [any] city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

For further confirmation, Jesus himself also explained that:

Matthew 5:17: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.”

And, later, the Apostle Paul, upon direct inspiration from God, explained that:

Romans 15:8: “Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision [Israelites] for the truth of God, to confirm the promises [prophecies] [made] unto the fathers [Hebrews].”

These truths, once realized, beg the question, “But didn’t God have a plan in place to offer salvation to Gentiles like you and me?” And the answer is clear that God ALWAYS and FOREVER has had a plan in place to save ANYONE ANY TIME who chooses to express saving faith. This is consistent with God’s character of mercy: the blood sacrifice of his only Son would eventually pay off the sin-debt of every human being who has ever lived although every human being also has been required to BELIEVE what God had revealed regarding salvation up to that particular point in history.

But the fact of the matter is that God has progressively revealed DIFFERENT things at different times to different people (as is stated in Hebrews 1:1); and he has required individuals to trust or express saving faith in precisely what he had revealed at various points of history:

For Abel and Cain, it was to express faith (which was not a "work") by simply bringing a blood sacrifice. Later, the Bible explains, Abraham BELIEVED God regarding his promises. After that, when “Jesus came to his OWN, but his OWN received him not,” there was still a remnant of true believers such as the Apostle Peter who obeyed God's requirement to believe in the identity of Israel’s true messiah:

John 8:24: “I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am [he], ye shall die in your sins.”

At this point in time, it had not yet been “revealed” or “manifested” that Christ’s resurrection from a death by Roman cross was God’s omniscient and eternal plan to achieve redemption for ALL of mankind. How do we know this?

When Jesus informed Peter that he was going to be killed in Jerusalem and after Peter had been preaching “the gospel” (which is a generic word that simply means a message of good news, of which there are actually several in the Bible, including, "The Kingdom is 'At Hand'), Peter's response was:

Matthew 16:21: “From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this SHALL NOT be unto thee.”

Why did God require Peter to believe in the identity of Israel’s messiah, but NOT to know that the Roman cross was God’s predetermined solution of substitutionary atonement for the sins of the whole world? The Bible answers this question clearly, although the vast majority of evangelical preachers teach something different:

1 Corinthians 2:8 “Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known [it], they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”

The Body of Christ today is not aware of the reality that God continually OUTMANEUVERS Satan by HIDING certain future truths so that his ultimate plans can be accomplished.

The Roman cross is one such example. Based upon earlier revealed Bible truth, many Jews expected their messiah to be offered up on an ALTAR - as was Isaac by Abraham - not to suffer the humiliation of Rome’s cross. Indeed, when Satan possessed Judas to betray Christ into Rome’s hands to be crucified, surely Lucifer thought that he had finally succeeded in his long travail to snuff out the promised deliverer once and for all, since all of his previous attempts to destroy the seed line had failed.

Once redemption was accomplished - once for all, THEN it could be “revealed” that God had once again outsmarted Satan for his own sovereign purposes:

Luke 18:34: “And they understood none of these things: and this saying was HID from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.”

Romans 3:21: “BUT NOW the righteousness of God without the law is MANIFESTED, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;”

Proverbs 25:2: “[It is] the glory of God to CONCEAL a thing: but the honour of kings [is] to search out a matter.”

All of this is proven out by studying the aftermath of the crucifixion: The disciples did not understand it as God’s ultimate victory, which in turn displayed God’s manifold wisdom; rather, they sulked about Jerusalem as if in a stupor of defeat.

Returning now to the main implication of our topic: "The modern church does not teach or understand that Jesus' earthly ministry was to FULFILL JUDAISM rather than to BEGIN CHRISTIANITY," it is important that we ask the question, "WHY NOT?"

The answer is that God ALWAYS, and for the most part, LITERALLY, fulfills all prophecy - and in this case, that God had always promised that the theocratic nation of Israel was to be the HEAD of the nations, and that salvation was to come to the world THROUGH God's bride, redeemed Israel. She is the chosen vessel or instrument through which God was to offer salvation and bless "ALL NATIONS" (and people).

In this sense, Israel was "chosen" or "predestined" to evangelize the world in the role of "priests" to "the nations," which was to find its ultimate culmination in the "great commission."

It is not that God loved Israelites more than Gentiles, but that his prophetic plan had a particular purpose and order to RESTORE his dominion over the earth through this chosen nation whose redeemed would one day reign as PRIESTS (intermediaries and rulers) from the city of David.

However this chosen "position" of leadership (first established in Exodus 19 when God "birthed" a nation under law through Moses) had deteriorated to the point that the vast majority of Jews had been dispersed into heathen Gentile nations as a judgment for their national idolatry. When the book of Matthew opens, we find a saviour born into the world who is going to call Israel BACK to their chosen status by requiring REPENTANCE evidenced by submitting to the ceremonial law of the Hebrew cleansing rite of water baptism.

It is important to realize that Jesus was not setting aside the law at this time and offering salvation to anyone who "walked up to him and asked to be saved," as is commonly taught in most churches today. We often hear someone today speculate whether they would have believed Christ if they had been living during this time, but the fact remains that Jesus considered Gentiles who had not become proselytes to Judaism through circumcision and the blessing of Israel as DOGS:

Mark 7:26-28: "The woman was a Greek, a Syro-phenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. But Jesus said unto her, Let the CHILDREN (chosen Israelites) FIRST be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast [it] unto the DOGS. And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs."

Historically, the Gentiles since the Tower of Babel had been allowed by God to "choose their own way" and literally occupied the status of having been "cut off" from God, EXCEPT those who accepted and acknowledged by faith the fact that God would save them IF they came to Him THROUGH His chosen vessel Israel. This was God's sovereign stated plan of prophetic salvation from the time of Moses - and this continued through the earthly ministry of Christ.

It surprises Bible students to find out, as we shall study in the next chapter, that it is not until the Apostle Paul is raised up under a NEW AND DIFFERENT PROGRAM CALLED "THE MYSTERY" that any Gentile like you or me can be saved APART from Israel rather than THROUGH her. This was a dispensational change that we will investigate in depth in a moment.

But in returning to the story of the Syro-phenician woman, this account is usually interpreted incorrectly by modern Christendom: specifically, that Jesus didn't "really" mean it when he stated her status to be as a "cut off mongrel" from God apart from Israel since he eventually granted her request; and thus, this means that any Gentile could be saved simply by "trusting in the finished work of the Cross".

We have already demonstrated that even the disciples did not UNDERSTAND that the Roman cross would achieve redemption for all mankind: God HID this reality from them in order to deceive Satan. If Lucifer HAD KNOWN that the humiliation of the Roman cross was actually the DEFEAT OF SATAN then surely Satan would never have schemed to place Christ upon it in the first place.

The Apostle Paul makes reference to God's brilliant victory:

"[And] having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it." (Colossians 2:15).

The final point to consider is that, despite most modern teaching, Jesus DID NOT set aside the law during his earthly ministry. Instead, he proclaimed:

Matthew 5:18: "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from THE LAW, till ALL be fulfilled."

Instead, it would be accurate to say that Jesus EXPLAINED to Israelites that they were (mistakenly and arrogantly) not keeping the law from their inward HEARTS, but rather as an OUTWARD OBSERVANCE. This explains why Jesus continually locked horns with the religious Judaistic establishment (namely, the Pharisees) because they had turned what was "good" into a self-serving social rite that promoted their own personal agendas rather than God's. Paul explains this distinction:

Romans 2:29: "But he [is] a Jew, which is one INWARDLY; and circumcision [is that] of the heart, in the spirit, [and] not in the letter; whose praise [is] not of men, but of God."

And throughout scripture, we also know that:

1 Kings 15:3: "And he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him: and his HEART (inward man) was not perfect with the LORD his God, as the HEART of David his father."

In conclusion, while it is true that God, in his omniscience and "manifold wisdom" knew all along that his "bride" (national Israel) would REJECT her own betrothed, he STILL had dual plans in place to both FULFILL the law, and later, to introduce Christianity through a NEW APOSTLE named PAUL. The basic tenets of Christianity are, of course, that Christ died for the sins of the whole world, that the new "body of Christ" is not "under law," and that we need simply trust in the finished work of Calvary in our hearts for salvation WITHOUT ADDING WORKS OR HUMAN EFFORTS to the process: It is the gift of God that must be received "by faith alone."

During the time of Jesus' earthly ministry, God was fulfilling prophetic Judaism, as clearly stated in the books from Exodus through the early part of Acts. God's purpose is that Israel will reign on earth as priests and minister as a"chosen vessel" to offer salvation THROUGH the theocratic nation that God had birthed in Exodus 19.

Many Bible scholars have recognized these deeper truths by "rightly dividing" Scripture (2 Timothy 2:15) throughout the centuries. Certainly Martin Luther recognized SOME of these truths when he birthed the Reformation by insisting that the overwhelmingly predominant religious system of that day (the Roman Catholic Church) was WRONG, and that salvation was absolutely free - by grace through faith ALONE in Christ - "sola fide." This establishes the reality that the greatest Bible teachers proclaim the full counsel of God regardless of whether it is popular: Indeed, even the Apostle Paul admitted at one point that: "This you know, that ALL those in Asia have turned away from me..."

There have been others, including Sir Robert Anderson of Scotland Yard in Great Brittain during the 19th Century, Darby, Stam, O'Hair, Miles Stanford, Schofield, Chafer, William Reed Newell of Moody Bible Institute, and Charles Ryrie at Dallas Theological Seminary who comprehended the difference between what is taught by Christ's earthly ministry, and what is revealed specifically to men today through his heavenly progressive revelation to Paul regarding the new body referred to as "The Mystery" in Scripture.

It is worth the time to carefully read Ryrie's observations on this topic:

“There is a dangerous and entirely baseless sentiment which assumes that every teaching of Jesus must be binding during this age simply because He said it. The fact is forgotten that the Lord Jesus, while living under, keeping, and applying the Law of Moses, also taught the principles of His future Kingdom, and, at the end of His ministry and in relation to His Cross, He also anticipated the teachings of grace. If this threefold division of the teachings of Jesus is not recognized, there can be nothing but confusion of mind and consequent contradiction of truth.”

"The teachings of grace are perfect and sufficient in themselves. They provide for the instruction of the child of God in every situation which may arise. There is no need that they be supplemented, or augmented, by the addition of precepts from either the Law of Moses or the teachings of the Kingdom.”

“The teachings of Jesus are possibly the most difficult part of the entire Bible to interpret accurately. Why is this so? Because in His humiliation He lived under the Mosaic Law and perfectly kept it; but He also presented Himself to Israel as their King; and when He was rejected as King, He introduced the new part of God's program, the Church, and gave some teaching about it. In other words, He lived and taught in relation to three different dispensations of God's program for this world - the Law, the Church, and the Kingdom. To keep these aspects of teaching distinct and - without confusion is not always easy.

"There are those who consider the Sermon on the Mount a blueprint for Christian living today. To use it this way would require deliteralizing much of what is taught in order to be able to obey it in this unrighteous world. Further, if this is truth for the Church, then why did our Lord not mention the Holy Spirit, so vital for Christian living, or even the Church itself?"

"Others understand the Sermon's primary purpose to relate to Christ's kingdom message. The forerunner, John the Baptist, had announced the kingdom (Matt. 3:2); Jesus Himself began to preach that message (Matt. 4:17). The kingdom they preached and the kingdom the people expected was that messianic, Davidic, millennial kingdom promised in the OT.”

As we shall see in a moment, after most Israelites rejected their own deliverer, God inserted a brilliant INTERRUPTION of prophecy which the Bible calls a "mystery" through a NEW apostle who would reveal a NEW PROGRAM by which anyone can be saved APART from Israel - instead of THROUGH her.

This understanding also explains why Daniel's 70th week has never been completely and literally fulfilled, why Israel cannot be considered a "theocratic nation" today (despite the United Nations declaring it to be such in 1948), and why no prophecy is being fulfilled today.

When the "unprophesied administrational interruption" of Israel's prophecy in favor of the mystery (as entrusted to Paul through progressive revelation, and, as explained in Romans 9-11) is apprehended, other ongoing Bible conundrums come into full focus. A list of these conundrums might include questions such as what the purpose of water baptism was, why God introduced Spirit baptism, whether a Christian is "under" the tithe or the sabbath, and what the purpose of the charismatic sign gifts was, and why they "ceased" at a particular time.

(To Be Continued...)

David S. Davenport

104 Summerwalk Place

Simpsonville, SC 29680

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