Ephesians | Session 13 | Journey Racap

The speaker is Dwayne from Directional Bible Ministries. He shares that three years ago, he began questioning his understanding of the church in the New Testament. He realized that the church was not born in Acts 2, but rather it was the offering of the kingdom to the nation of Israel. He discovered the teachings of old theologians like E.W. Bullinger and Sir Robert Anderson, who saw Acts 2 as the culmination of the promise of the kingdom to Israel, not the birth of a new church. Dwayne also questioned other beliefs attributed to the body of Christ, such as being the Bride of Christ and being under the New Covenant. He discovered that the body of Christ is not promised the New Jerusalem and that they are not under a covenant. Dwayne believes that Augustine was the one who spiritualized everything and that the apostles had a dispensational thought, believing in a coming Messiah and a kingdom. However, when the nation of Israel rejected their Messiah, God raised up Paul Good morning. Welcome to Directional Bible Ministries. This is a teaching ministry that is called To Rightly Divide the Word of God for the People of God. My name is Dwayne. Today is January the 8th. I believe this is the first recording of the new year and we still find ourselves in the book of Ephesians. Last time we were together we broke into chapter number 5. We were looking at verses 1-7. Ephesians has been quite a ride for me as many of you know that have been following along with my ministry. About three years ago I was talking to a brother this morning and I realized this. About three years ago I really had an awakening as far as how I see the church in the New Testament. For years I've pastored, I've been on staff at different churches, but always in a Bible teaching role. I've taught secondary, 7-12, I've taught at a Bible college. I've just always taught that the church was born in Acts chapter 2. Of course, there's a lot of ramifications if the church was actually born in Acts 2. That's when the church came under the New Covenant. That's when the church started to be called the Bride of Christ. We're not there in Ephesians with Paul, but still. About three years ago I said, you know, is the church the Bride of Christ? What was Pentecost about in Acts chapter 2? There were no Gentiles present. Those that were were proselytes that had already been proselytized over into Judaism. What was Pentecost all about? I remember just asking myself, honestly, questioning the assumptions, questioning what I had always assumed. As I started questioning it, I started to go back and look at some of the old guys. We're talking people that are long gone. E.W. Bullinger, even some old writings of C.I. Schofield, John Nelson Darby, Sir Robert Anderson, which I quoted a lot of Sir Robert Anderson, but I only quoted him in the context of Daniel 9 and Daniel's 70th week, but I never dug into what Robert Anderson believed about the rest of the Bible. Anyway, I just started going back and looking at, you know, before the modern evangelical movement started, what you would call a classic dispensationalist. How did they see what happened in Acts 2? I found that it was completely different. They saw Acts 2 as the culmination of the promise of the offering of the kingdom to the nation of Israel. They didn't see the birth of a new church. I think it was Robert Anderson who said nothing, quote, Christian happened in Acts chapter 2. It was the offering of the kingdom to the nation. Jesus came, preached the gospel of the kingdom, which was repent and be baptized. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. The kingdom of heaven is nigh. But he never said the kingdom of heaven is here. Then, you know, he gives these keys to Peter. What you open will be open. What you shut will be shut. You know, things like that. You know, and Acts 2 is Peter using those keys. It's Peter presenting the kingdom to the nation of Israel. Period. And Israel, from that point forward, began to reject it. And it culminated in the killing of Stephen. And then, all of a sudden, we see Paul, Saul of Tarsus, in chapter number 9, being converted to the faith. And Paul says that the Lord is giving him a mystery, something that was hid, something that nobody in the Old Testament understood or knew about. It wasn't revealed to them. So, none of his fellow apostles knew what Paul knew, which was this mystery that, you know, the reconciliation, that God is reconciling the world back to himself, that, you know, there's going to be a new creature, a new creation born, a new man. It's not the old one. It's the new one. And it's not based on repentance and baptism. It's based on just belief, faith, trust in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As you can see, I mean, that's kind of at odds, you know, with what I had been taught, I had come to understand. Then I began to question, well, what else are we attributing to the body of Christ, the church, that really doesn't pertain to us? The Bride of Christ. We call ourselves the Bride, but you study Revelation, chapter 20, I think it is. The Bride is Israel, the New Jerusalem. Yet, you know, I've been to churches called the New Jerusalem, New Jerusalem Baptist, New Jerusalem Fellowship. You know, the body of Christ is not promised the New Jerusalem. And, you know, just slowly I started peeling this thing back and realizing that I'm actually, I was actually a covenant believer. I was a covenant theologian. I was a covenant believer in that I believe that we, the body of Christ, are under the New Covenant. Well, then I keep studying and, you know, we're not under the New Covenant. The New Covenant was offered to the nation of Israel, and they rejected it. So, they're not under a covenant either. We're not under a covenant. They're not under a covenant. You know, so, so much for covenant Baptist church and covenant fellowship. I mean, just you can see how all of this just began to come apart in my mind. And then I started digging down and reading, you know, some of these older guys. And I began to look at, well, how did we get where we are in the church today? How did we all end up thinking we're under this covenant? Well, I mean, I think it goes back and go back and look at my studies. I've talked about this. I mean, Augustine was the first one to spiritualize it all. Because if you look at the apostles, I mean, they were dispensational in their thought. They believed that all the Old Testament prophesied about this coming Messiah that would redeem the nation, that would bring in a kingdom. A king would come, sit on the throne of David, and restore the nation. And, you know, and the nation would be a light to the world. The nation would go out and reach the Gentiles. That's dispensational thought. I mean, they thought, you know, that the kingdom of heaven would suddenly appear. I mean, they thought this would happen, this would happen, this would happen. They were truly dispensational in the way they thought. Yet that word dispensational in so much of the church today is almost anathema. And then, you know, the early church, you know, they felt that was what was going to happen. Well, it didn't happen. You know, the nation of Israel rejected their Messiah. God raised up Paul, gave him the mystery. He went to the Gentiles with the gospel of grace. And yes, there is a difference between the gospel that Christ and the apostles taught and the gospel that Paul taught. I know that blows your mind. But it's true. I mean, Paul never taught repentance and baptism. The apostles did. You know, so literally, it's just one domino at a time, one mind-blowing realization at a time. And, you know, as you can imagine, this is my journey. You know, so when I share this journey with others, I mean, they look at me like I've fallen off the wagon. But I assure you, I haven't. If anything, I'm going back. I read a neat book by Sir Robert Anderson, you know, that guy that every pastor I know quotes him, at least dispensationalist. He's probably not popular under Reformed theologians, those types. But, you know, Robert Anderson, I mean, he clearly believed that there was a difference between what Paul taught and what James taught, what Paul taught and what Peter taught. And he wrote a book called Forgotten Truths. In other words, we've forgotten this. How did we forget this? How did we forget that there's a difference between the message of Christ and the apostles and the message of Paul? How did we forget all this? Well, I think it started with Augustine when he spiritualized everything. I don't think, I know. It started with Augustine when he started spiritualizing everything. Well, it didn't, the kingdom didn't magically appear like everybody thought it was. So it must be a spiritual kingdom. So we're in this spiritual kingdom, this kingdom that is almost but not quite. And I've heard that language used my entire ministry. We're in the kingdom, we're building the kingdom, we're part of the kingdom, we're kingdom believers. Well, the kingdom has nothing to do with the body of Christ. All of the promises that are given to the body of Christ are heavenly. While all the promises given to the nation of Israel are earthly. We are a heavenly people, not an earthly people. You know, so Augustine was the first one to spiritualize all that. And, you know, Christ didn't return. The apostles thought that, you know, if they preached the kingdom gospel and the nation of Israel would repent and get baptized, which was required for the priesthood, that they would be kings and priests to reach the nations, Christ would return, his second coming, they really believed it would happen in their lifetime. They really believed that if they just preached this kingdom gospel, the nation of Israel would repent, they would go right into Daniel's 70th week. Bear in mind, Daniel 9, he talked about 70 weeks. Well, 69 of those weeks had already been fulfilled. The clock was still ticking along marvelously 483 years from the going forth of the commandment to restore and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, Daniel 9, that whole prophecy. The clock wouldn't stop, they would just roll into the tribulation and the Hebrew epistles, every single one of them, Hebrews, the revelation is preparing the nation for what they believe was going to happen next. After Israel had repented and accepted Christ as their Messiah, they would roll right into Daniel's 70th week, the man of sin would be revealed, you know, and all those epistles, Hebrews, the revelation is preparing the nation for what didn't happen. So, the church spiritualized it, it did happen, you know, the Pope is the vicar, he is Christ on earth. Church has keys, Peter, the Pope, you know, same thing, you know, the Pope is a descendant of Peter, I mean, they just spiritualized the whole text, you know, and it stayed like that. I mean, the Roman church taught it, the Protestant reformers never refuted it, and it's taught in the church today, we've completely spiritualized what physically did not happen, but will happen one day, you know, well, I've come to reject that. It didn't happen, so God raised up Paul with the gospel of grace, the death barrel and the reconciliation, I mean, the death barrel and the resurrection of Christ, that, you know, the mystery, Paul did what the nation refused to do. So, we need to stop spiritualizing the Bible, and that's what we do. So, anyway, for those of you that have been following me for the past three years, you've watched me go through this, and it's cost me a little bit, you know, those around me think I've fallen off the wagon, the word heretic has been used, simply because I refuse to believe that Peter, James, and John had the same ministry as Paul. They didn't, and they never did, till the day they died, everything they wrote was to the nation of Israel about this coming kingdom. Paul was the only one that realized that kingdom wasn't coming, that kingdom was being postponed. We are now in the age of grace, which means God didn't give the nation what it deserved for rejecting their Messiah. Instead, and he showed grace to the Gentiles by raising up Paul to do it for them. You know, there's nothing heretical about that. It's just really old dispensationalism that we have forgotten, and that's what Forgotten Truths is all about by Sir Robert Anderson, which we love to quote, but we don't totally understand where the guy was coming from, and he was not a theologian. He was a police officer. He was an investigator in London, and actually was an investigator on the Jack the Ripper so he just investigated what he was hearing from the Anglican Church, which is where he was raised. Bullinger was Anglican, which is, you know, covenant reform type theology, everything I'm talking about. And then I read a book by Sir Robert Anderson as well, before Forgotten Truths, called The Silence of God. Why is God seemingly silent today? Why aren't the dead being raised? Why aren't these miracles happening? Why aren't, I mean, we're not seeing Pentecostal miracles today. Anybody within their right mind would have to acknowledge that. It's not happening. Why? Why is God seemingly silent in spite of everything they keep saying, you know, that he is? You know, why is he silent? Because we are in the postponement. God is no longer dealing in signs, wonders, and miracles, which was to prepare the kingdom. All those things disappeared when the kingdom was rejected, period. Now I know, I just totally blew my charismatic Pentecostal friends' minds. But he just takes the issue head on. Why is God silent? Because we're in the time of postponement. We are not in the period of prophecy. The time period that you and I are living in right now is not in prophecy. And I have come to believe we are not seeing prophecy fulfilled. Because all prophecy was Old Testament regarding the nation of Israel, God's covenant people. God's covenant people have been set aside. Romans 9, 10, 11. They have been set aside and God is no longer dealing with them. Now they will return during the tribulation period once the church is removed. Yes, I believe in the rapture. The rapture has to occur. There's many reasons why it has to occur. We need to be gotten out of the way so that God can once again return to the nation of Israel, dealing with them during their 70th week of Daniel. So, Forgotten Truths by Sir Robert Anderson. The Silence of God by Sir Robert Anderson. You need to read those books. You need to read what those guys had to say. John Nelson Darby. Who else did I mention? E.W. Bullinger. See, something happened. We went into this period of, at one time in the United States and maybe around the world, there were two ways of interpreting the Bible. There was the covenant, reformed way of interpreting the Bible, which is the church is Israel, Israel is the church. And then the dispensational way, which was popularized by C.I. Schofield, 1917, early 1900s. But it's not new. People that say dispensationalism is new, go back and read the apostles. They were dispensationalists. It wasn't new. But then this amalgamation took place, which I think the baby that was born was called evangelicalism. When we said, let's just put aside our differences and let's just work together for the kingdom. I think Billy Graham played a huge role in that in the 1950s. And now it's just kind of been amalgamated. Now nobody knows what they believe. Covenant theologians say things that are dispensational and dispensationalists, suppose, say things that are covenant. The bottom line, if you think we are under the covenant, you are a covenant. Your theology is covenantial. Is that a word? Covenantal? Covenantial? You know, and now it's just become this one confused blob of nobody knows what they believe anymore. So anyway, that is a little bit of the road that I have gone down and I can guarantee you, I have been revived as a result of it. I have stopped trying to harmonize what Peter, James and John said with what Paul said. Peter, James and Paul were talking to the nation of Israel, the kingdom gospel, with the full expectation that the nation would eventually repent, they would enter into tribulation and it would culminate with the second coming of Christ, the reestablishment of the nation and the millennial reign of Christ. They were looking at prophecies about the nation. Paul, on the other hand, Acts 9, he was converted. I don't think he had all the answers in Acts 9, but from that point forward, he received revelation by revelation and began to totally understand that the nation of Israel was being set aside, that no kingdom was going to come, that God was going to deal with both Jew and Gentile, a new creation, a new man in a totally different way, through the gospel of grace. Peter realized this. He wrote in one of his letters, the things that Paul writes, brother Paul writes are hard to understand. He understood. I think they came to understand. It revolutionizes the way and it's not new. It's just going back to the way the scriptures used to be interpreted before all this spiritualization began to take effect, before this evangelical movement began to take effect, where it's all come together now. So now you can go in the First Baptist Church of this and the First Baptist Church of that. One is reformed, the other is not, or at least they don't think they are. There's so much confusion because you're trying to mesh these two methods of interpretation into one and it's creating confusion and contradiction and people are walking away because they're not stupid. They can see it. I saw it, but my answer to it was harmonize it. Make it harmonize. Harmonize what James said with what Paul said. There's no harmony there. They were talking to two different people groups about two different things. Paul is all heavenly promises to the body of Christ, the church, which is made up of both Jew and Gentile. Peter, James and John is all earthly. There was no concept of heaven in the Old Testament, or at least a heaven that they would go to. It was all earthly, the fulfilling of the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants with the nation, the restoration of the nation, King Jesus sitting on the throne of David, ruling and reigning, and in the future somehow the church and Israel are going to serve the Lord together. So anyway, I've spent 25 minutes just feeling like I needed to explain that, maybe not to you, but maybe to me. Because the further I get into this, and then the other thing is I realize I'm not alone. There is an awakening happening. The church in America, at least, this is where I live, this is probably where you live, I don't know, maybe you live in South America, whatever, the church as a whole, the organized church, in my humble, saddened opinion, is absolutely dead. I can throw a rock in any direction. I live in a downtown on a main street. I can throw a rock in any direction and I can hit a dead church's stained glass windows. They're empty. It's Sunday morning. I can go for my walk and their parking lots will be empty. Why? I think because this has happened to the church. And you'll say, oh, well, this is the promise falling away. No, it's not. The falling away will happen during the tribulation period, I believe. But anyway, you would understand that if you really start following and studying. But why is the church dead? I mean, because of this. The church has become woke. Why are we allowing all of this woke theology into the church? Why are there rainbow flags in half the church's lawns in my community, in your community? Why is there just a blatant rejection of the writings of Paul? Why is Paul demonized, ostracized in the modern church? And he is. Just open your eyes and look around. I follow Jesus, not Paul. I prefer Jesus over Paul. Because they have to push Paul out because Paul taught so many things that they disagree with in the modern church. He taught against female pastors. He taught against sexual sins, especially those of homosexuality. He taught the order, God, Christ, man, woman, children. Man is the head of his wife, Christ is the head of the church. You've got to kick Paul out in order to arrive at this modern woke theology. And that's what they've done. But, you know, Paul knew that in his lifetime. He said, they've all abandoned me. They've all rejected me. And why? Because they all went back and placed themselves under kingdom theology and kingdom gospel and rejected the grace gospel that Paul was teaching. Now, you may be sitting there and you're challenged by this. I encourage you to be challenged by this. Study to show thyself approved unto God, rightly dividing the word of God. Rightly dividing it. It might be all for us, but it is not all to us. The body of Christ is nowhere in the Old Testament, Genesis, Revelation, and I would submit to you it's nowhere in the Gospels, Matthew through John. And it's nowhere in the first seven, eight chapters of Acts. Acts is a transitional verse from Peter to Paul, from Jerusalem to Antioch, from the kingdom gospel to the grace gospel, from the kingdom church, the little flock that the apostles ministered to, to the body of Christ, of which you and I are a part of now. So I just challenge you with those. Don't get offended. You know, just study the word of God for yourself and see if these things be so. So this lesson went a completely different direction. I thought I was going to get into the text, but I, like I said, I think I sometimes do this more for myself than I do for you. Just to remind myself the journey that I've come on and where I've arrived and am in my walk with the Lord right now. And I would encourage you to do the same thing. Randy White says, question the assumptions. Question what you assume. You know, why do you assume the church was born in Acts 2? Because that's what you've been told. But does the text bear that out? Why would God Paul call Paul to the Gentiles and not to the nation of Israel? The 12 were sent to the nation of Israel. As a matter of fact, one for each tribe, Revelation, all that. Paul's not there. Paul was sent to the Gentiles, who became the body of Christ. Jew and Gentile now. Question what you have always assumed. And I promise you, it'll open your eyes in many ways. So, well, I've rambled enough. God bless you guys. And hope you have a great day. It's looking at my computer here. Let me see, which I never got to my notes. But see that little snowflake right there? We are getting some snow here in central Virginia. So, I'm going to go out there and take a look at it. But, anyway, God bless you guys. I love you. And remember that God loves you and He wants the best for you. And, you know, He's always working everything out for our good.