During Sunday Evening Story-Time this past week, with the ‘teaching elder’ .... about 1 Thess 4:16-18, when he was talking about the transformed body we will have in the resurrection .... he referenced:
1 Cor 15:35 But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?
Then he went to Mary in the garden with Jesus after His resurrection, who was not allowed to touch Him .... and then he said that 2 hours later the women in the garden touched His feet. The ‘teaching elder’ related how Jesus appeared in the upper room with His disciples and let them touch His nail prints from the crucifixion. He ate food with them, and then He disappeared suddenly from their midst. Then the ‘teaching elder’ likened our resurrection body to a body like the Lord Jesus Christ. He said we were literally going to be reshaped, not connected with Adam, and that we would be a new kind of humanity.
Did the ‘Cunning Royal Jester’ forget that ‘mid-Acts-ers’ teach that ‘earthly Jesus’ was ‘another Jesus’ from the ‘risen, glorified Lord’ that appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus? ‘Mid-Acts-ers’ make 2 different Jesus’: ‘one Jesus’ in His earthly ministry BEFORE His crucifixion, and ‘another Jesus’ AFTER His resurrection and ascension, they call ‘His heavenly ministry’ (which they teach is ‘unique’ to Paul). But in the end of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, it is the SAME ‘risen, glorified Lord’ Who appeared to His disciples after His resurrection and commissioned them .... as Who called Saul on the Damascus Road. Woops! That messes up the ‘mid-Acts-ers’ .... ‘Paul is unique’ paradigm!
The ‘teaching elder’ made some very surprising statments that I NEVER heard before during all my nearly 30 years of being a ‘mid-Acts-er’. I can’t help but wonder what caused the turn-around. He said,
‘When we talk about being in the heavens ....
the earth is in the heavens ....
the earth is the command center ....
earth will be in the realm of where we are.’
How odd! Could his comments be an intentional effort to BLEND what he has been teaching (for many years) as separate, distinct locations (heaven and earth) for separate, distinct entities (Israel and the body of Christ)?
A double dose of VERSES .... from both JOHN and PAUL .... would cure his divisions .... if he would swallow them:
John 11:52 And not for that nation only, but that also he should
gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.
Paul showed that ‘those things in heaven’ .... will be UNITED together .... with ‘those things on earth’ in the end:
Eph 1:10 That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might
gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
Further, Paul explained that the saints will be assembled together when the Lord comes (also see 2 Thess 1:4-10):
2 Thess 2:1-4 Now we beseech you, brethren,
by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and by our gathering together unto him,
2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day (what day? the day of Christ, the day Christ comes to gather us together in one) shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
Jesus also taught the gathering at the harvest, which is the end of the world, at the trumpet sound:
Matt 13:30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
Matt 24:30-31 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Maybe the ‘Cunning Royal Jester’ is beginning to peddle backwards. He certainly ought to. As of this week's Sunday Evening Story-Time, he now has the earth in the heavens! How convenient .... to adjust his 2 distinct places!
This is David Dowell, saying, "Think about it!"
