View source for Grace, and the New Covenant 15

====Grace, and the New Covenant, 15====

Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. (Isaiah 26:19)

Another unscriptural teaching:

The endless emphasis on the catching up of the believers with practically no mention of the resurrection. The resurrection of the dead is the central hope of the Scriptures and was declared by the Prophets. The ascension of the believers was never mentioned by the Prophets.

And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:2)

The quality of our resurrection is to be the focus of our endeavors. We shall be clothed in the day of resurrection with the deeds we have practiced during our lifetime on the earth.

And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness [righteous deeds] of saints. (Revelation 19:8)

The saints will be clothed in their righteous deeds—righteous deeds that flow from Christ who has been formed in them.

The sinners will be clothed in their unrighteous deeds—especially the sinners who have made a profession of Christ. They knew to do good and chose not to. Therefore they shall be beaten with many lashes.

Paul's mark was the out-resurrection from the dead, the resurrection to life and glory as a priest of God.

If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. (Philippians 3:11)

If there is no resurrection of the dead our Christian life is in vain.

If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. (I Corinthians 15:19)

The current emphasis on the catching up of the believers, an emphasis out of all proportion to the importance placed on the catching up in the New Testament, has destroyed the doctrine of the resurrection. It is the resurrection that is the crowning act of salvation, not the catching up. And they are not at all the same thing. The resurrection to life and glory is the result of and the reward for a life of patient cross-carrying obedience. The catching up of the saints to meet the Lord in the air is the bringing together of the army of the Lord in preparation for the cavalry charge of Armageddon.

Jeremiah, knowing the Scriptures, would be aware of the resurrection. But he never would have heard of a "rapture" of God's people to Heaven.

The current teaching that the commandments of the Lord Jesus found in the four Gospel accounts do not apply to Christians. Here is a deadly error. Christian teachers, being aware that the Lord Jesus preached righteousness, are teaching that He was speaking to Jews. Now that He has risen from the dead we need pay no attention to the words of Christ because we are saved by grace.

Yet if one will go through the epistles of Paul he will discover that Jesus and Paul taught the same need for righteous, holy behavior. How could it be otherwise? It was God in Jesus who gave the commandments found in the Gospels. It was God in Jesus in Paul who gave the commandments found in the Epistles.

Continued.[[Grace, and the New Covenant 16]]