So what are we to call all the people saved before the Jesus Christ established the Church? The parable of the olive tree in Romans 11 shows that there is a continuity between the redeemed of the Old Testament and the New Testament Church.
Response by The Biblicist
Absolutely and completely and utterly false.
No you are completely and utterly wrong.
Further response by The Biblicist
Find the term "church" in Romans 9-11 and we will talk about it. There are TWO trees olive trees in Romans 11 and not merely ONE. The branches being cut off and grafted back in represent the MANIFEST KINGDOM OF GOD among the Jews and then among the Gentiles. God takes out a people from one and then from the other.
Paul was writing to the Church at Rome. He was writing primarily to Gentile Christians.
There are two olive trees, wild and good or natural. Some branches were broken off the good olive tree because of unbelief. Branches
from the wild olive tree but were grafted into the natural or good olive tree which represented spiritual or believing Israel of the Old Testament! The branches grafted into the good olive tree represent the Church. There is only one good olive tree and that is a fact! The Church is a continuation of the Family of God of the Old Testament.
Furthermore because the word church does not appear in Romans 11 is totally irrelevant.
[It should be noted note that there are several books in the New Testament where the words church or churches are not used. The words do not appear in the Gospels of Mark, Luke, and John. If one believes that the Church was not established until Pentecost, that is not necessarily unusual. It is interesting, however, that the book that many dispensationalists claim is the Gospel of the Kingdom [written by a Jewish believer who collected taxes for Rome] is the Gospel in which the Church is first proclaimed. The words church or churches are not mentioned in 1st & 2nd Peter, 1st & 2nd John, and Jude. Can we then argue the absence of the Church? The words are also absent from the first 15 chapters of Romans and occur only twice in Hebrews.]
Now tell me these books/chapters are not written to the Church!
You are teaching a universal invisible non-dispensational church theory which has no basis in scripture at all.
You are entitled to your opinion and thus entitled to be wrong. One thing is certain. Anything I post will be non-dispensational.
In Revelation 21 the new heaven and the new earth arrive. The judgement seat is over and past. However, in Revelation 21 in that new heaven and earth you have a "saved" vast number of people who dwell OUTSIDE the New Jerusalem on the New earth.
That is utter nonsense!
Hence, not all the redeemed dwell within the New Jerusalem or the New Jerusalem does not symbolize all the redeemed. It symbolizes the redeemed who served God through His house on earth out of Israel (12 tribes) and the New Testament church (12 apostles).
What in the world do you mean by "who served God through His house on earth"? Where do you find any Scripture to support that idea?
In Revelation 19:6-9 not all the saved are part of the bride but their are guests and angels are not guests of heaven but residents.
That sounds like dispensational nonsense!
So you are arguing that the Bride, the New Jerusalem, is not the Church of Jesus Christ.
Revelation 3:12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.
Revelation 21:2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
Revelation 22:9 And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife.
Revelation 22:10 And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,
The Apostle Paul writing to the Church at Corinth states:
2 Corinthians 11:2 For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
Yet you say that the Church is not the bride of Jesus Christ!
Not all saints in the Old Testament times followed "the way of the Lord" as you can look at Abraham's nephew as such an example. Only the New Testament informs us that he was saved because we would never come to that conclusion by the Old Testament record. Not all saints from Matthew until now serve God in "the way of the Lord". Those who do not serve the Lord both in the Old and New Testament times "in the way of the Lord" will be OUTSIDE the gates ON THE NEW EARTH and OUTSIDE the bride which is a metaphor of faithfulness to the way of the Lord.
Where do you get this "in the way of the Lord"? All the above is utter nonsense. Scripture teaches that all the redeemed are joint heirs with Jesus Christ:
Romans 8:17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
Now discover those who are outside the gates of the city:
Revelation 22:14, 15
14. Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
15. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
Please tell me again: Are these the Saints who are outside the gates of the city, the New Jerusalem!