JJump, you seem to think the Jews are all saved. What biblical support do you have for this? Especially in light of passages that say the Jews would reject the Messiah (in the OT), and that the Jews did reject the Messiah? How much more clear could "his own received him not" be?
Well I said I was going to start another thread and I didn't get that done. May apology. Let's just deal with this hear, because it is relevant.
First of all you give only the evidence of all Jews being unsaved as they rejected the Messiah. Rejecting the Messiah has nothing to do with eternal salvation. The Messiah is Christ as King.
They rejected Him as their King.
Now most people will agree that Jews after Exodus were saved because God said He would look at them through the blood of the pascal sacrifices.
But what I don't understand is they don't have a problem seeing the Jews as saved because God told them to believe this until we flip over to Matthew and then suddenly for some strange reason they are all unsaved now.
So what happened in the meantime? Did God say during that 400-year span that He no longer accepted the animal blood? No. He was silent. So everything continued on just the same.
Israel was saved because they continued to slay the pascal lambs each year, and God continued to look at them through the death and blood of the animals, because it pointed to the eventual blood of Christ.
Christ was sent as King to set up a kingdom not as an Eternal Savior.
The other reason we know that Israel was saved is because the offer of the kingdom was the offer of a spiritual message. Spiritually dead people can not comprehend the spiritual message of the kingdom.
That is the whole reason why Gentiles and Jews today must come through the blood of Christ. When we are saved the Holy Spirit breathes life into our dead spirit and makes us alive spiritually.
Then and only then can we entertain the same offer that Israel rejected.
That's the problem with the modern day church. They think the only message that people are to hear is the good news of Christ's death and shed blood.
But Christ's death and shed blood is the message that you have to hear and accept so that the message of His resurrection and return can be brought to you. And if you want to have a part in the kingdom that He is going to establish then there are some ground rules. The NT are the ground rules that we must play by if we want to play a part in the coming kingdom.
You don't believe that eveyone who is saved goes to heaven?
This is another traditional teaching of the church that is leading people astray. It's not about going to heaven. You are not going to spend eternity in heaven anyway, because God is not going to spend eternity in heaven.
Now a better question is do you believe that all saved people spend eternity with God. And the answer to that question is a resounding YES! Absolutely!!!
However what peolpe fail to understand is that there is an age of time that we will go through before we step into eternity. And that is the coming age of the kingdom of Christ, which will last 1,000 years.
And there is the possibility that an eternally saved person will be separated from Christ/God during that time.
The Bible talks about rewards for believers -- not punishment.
The Bible talks about rewards and discipline. Some treat discipline as punishment, but discipline is for the good of the believer. If you reject discipline in this age, you will receive it in the age to come.
Most people fail to understand that the judgment seat of Christ is not just about rewards and loss of rewards, but it is about wages. You will receive wages for what you do whether good or bad. You will be paid. If you are faithful your payment will be wonderful. If you are unfaithful you will still be paid, but it's not something you are going to want!
So there are less rewards for those you would consider less faithful.
See this is my point. This is what the vast majority of Christendom believes. But what motivation is there to live a righteous life if all I'm going to do is have a smaller piece of paradise. Big whoopie do it's still paradise. I can party with the best of them now and still get my piece of paradise in your view. I don't have to fear God at all, because you may take a crown or two, but He's still going to give me my one-room shack in the corner and in paradise that's all I need. It's paradise for crying out loud.
See the disturbing logic to that view?
There are 2 major points we disagree on:
That the Jews are saved
That Jesus can say to believers indwelt and sealed by the Holy Spirit, "I never knew you" and "I don't know you" and cast them into outer darkness.
Well you are going to have a real hard time proving the Jews were not saved by Scripture. And if you can't prove the first then you are going to have an equally hard time proving the second by Scripture.
What is the outer darkness for believers?
Outer darkness means they are not in the light of the wedding feast. They are missing out on what all that pertains to and that means they are missing out on the kingdom.
Now I can't give you exact details as to what that looks like, because God doesn't give them to us. However, He does give us enough information to know that it's not going to be pleasant and that should motivate us to live faithful, obedient, overcoming lives by walking in the Spirit. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. That was written to believers.
Why would it be fearful if we all get our patch of heaven?
How does Jesus say to the HS that he never knew the person the HS is indwelling?
That's a great question. If we deny Jesus, He will deny us before His Father. Why would Jesus say that? Because the Father is the one that appoints rulers and brings them down.
If you are denied to the Father then He's not going to appoint you as a ruler. So we are denied to the Father.
Hope that helps.
