The seven "ones" of Christian unity (Eph 4)

[Dr. Walter]

I'm not familiar with the "standard baptistic views", but I'll take your word for it.

As of Matt 16:18, the church had not yet been built, or established. "...I will build my church...". Following this, there is a reference to the church regarding how discipline should be carried out.

Mat 18:17 And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.

Aside from that, there is no mention of the church until Acts 2, when those who were being saved were added to it by the Lord.

Act 2:47 Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.

Up until this point, the church is spoken of as something not yet, something to come in the future. From this point on, the church is referred to as something present.

Not sure how this squares with the standard baptistic view, but that's my understanding of it.

Christ was "building up" his church that had been assembled around him since the baptism of John in the first chapter of the gospel of John (Acts 1:22-23). Paul says that God has set the apostles in the church first and they were already functioning and the office vacted by Judas was filled before Pentecost. On the day of Pentecost it was simply "added" unto not instituted (Acts 2:41). The three thousand were "added" to those assembling together as the Lord's Church in Acts 2:1 who previously had been assembling in Acts 1 where an organized church business meeting occurred under the leadership of Peter and by direction of the scriptures.

 

[Gerhard Ebersoehn]

>Do you really buy into that kind of rationale??? Does God have more than one Savior, more than one kind of redemption? Are human beings different in nature from one dispensation to another?

NO! There is only one set of rules. Adam, Noah, The Patriarchs, the Prophets, Christians, misc. gentiles, and misc. Jews are all saved under the same rules. This is why it is foolish to think that modern unsaved Jews have different rules than unsaved gentiles.

GE:

I understand Paul as saying in Galatians 3:9 to 4:7 that he --- a Jew --- first had to become a Gentile and like unto a Gentile in order to become a son and an heir of God through Christ. Unless the Stone of Offence crushed one underneath, there's no hope he will stand up one day. "Are human beings different in nature from one dispensation to another?" not only in nature; in every way.

Ephesians 2:19-22 follows as day, night, the unity of the one Church of Jesus Christ, "...builded TOGETHER for an habitation of God through the Spirit".