If it refers to the Premil concept of the secret rapture, can someone give me the Bible texts where this idea comes from?

There are many who truly believe that holiness can be achieved in this life. I personally think they must begin with a wrong view of sin. But the Nazarene church teaches entire sanctification as a possibility in this life. I commend them on their efforts to live Christ-like lives, but worry about the inevitable disappointment.

You brought out the Jacob issue. Are you saying that Jacob and Abraham are two seperate issues?

I gave you ample reason why the Bible sees one body - that is the Body of Christ. You are either in Christ, Jew or not, or you are out of Christ, Jew or not. If you die out of Christ you are eternally damned and being a Jew will not save you. God's love for you or anyone else begins and ends with Christ. No Christ, no relationship with God.

By the way, I am partly Jewish. But I could be fully Jewish and it would profit me nothing. They are not the people of God, unless they are in Christ. Anything else is a false gospel.

Jesus said "I am the Way" - so there is no other way.

These may be important but it does not go far enough. If you apply that to the 7 churches of Revelation then maybe only one is disqualified. But Jesus disqualifies at least 2 and tells most of the others if they do not shape up He will ship them out.

I do not have to to fully explain it now, but I see one two-fold mark; God-taught and in line with Christ.

The promise was, "They shall all be taught of God." We see that in Peter's confession. But the need for the second part in Peter's renouncing Christ's mission and being called Satan. Peter was God-taught, but not in line with Christ. Peter was to be a foundation stone, but that stone must be in line with the Chief Cornerstone.

If churches and church leaders are not taught of God, which is different than taught of men, and if they are not in line with Christ - whatever else they are or do means nothing.

If you take the New Testament by itself, you would come to that conclusion. But if you look at Scipture as a whole, covenantally, it presents a very different picture.

Your view of the whole of Scripture will dictate your view of the parts. If you have a covenantal view, you must arrive at a paedobaptist view somewhere along the line. If you have a dispensational view, dividing old and new testament, you almost always arrive at a Baptist view.

I am always careful about making connections or links which the Bible does not make. Stones are inert, lifeless. Yet they are often used as examples of God's creating and regenerating powers; command these stones to become bread; if these were silent the very stones would cry out etc.

They were often used as monuments, erected as memorials to treaties and covenants, to wit, Jacob and Laban.

When the Jews made an altar they were commanded to use the stones as they find them, not to alter them or try to beautify them in any way. This certainly has significance as regards current trends in worship.

But I do not see a connection between stones and water baptism. Remember, however, that the original use of bapto had more to do with how something was altered than the mode by which it was altered. So you could baptise someone's face by altering it with a lump of wood.

Both the Ark and the Red Sea crossing are given as analogies of baptism. But we need to be careful to distinguish between the rite of water baptism and that which it actually signifies, which is the true baptism which is wrought by the Spirit of God.

Let's begin with Romans 11. How many olive trees are there? I see only one. What is the makeup of that olive tree? The tree is Christ ( I am the vine and you are the branches), and we are the branches. Now where did those branches come from? The original branches, according to the text, are believing Jews. The wild branches are believing non-Jews. So the original branches are part of the original vine. Would it be wrong to say that this vine constitues Israel? And that when you are ingrafted into it you are ingrafted into Israel? Do we not therefore partake of the promises first made to Israel, which were the same promises first given to Abraham?

Now you would have 2 olive trees, the church and natural Israel. But Romans 11 says there is one tree and outside of that tree there is no natural Israel. Unbelieving Jews are unbelievers, ie, pagans. Believing Jews are believers, ie, Christians. There are only two kinds of people in this world, those who are in Christ (olive tree branches) and those who are out (cut of branches and wild branches that were never part of the tree).

San Jose John wrote:
God can do some pretty wild stuff, like enabling donkeys to talk
even thought their mouths are hardly designed to do so. (Num. 22:28)
I do believe in a literal 6-day creation but many in the OPC
(my current denomination) do not. They reason that we can still
fellowship regardless of our views not only of creation, but end-times
as well (pre-trib, post-trib, etc.).

Secondly, although fellowship is not based on agreement but on the finished work of Jesus Christ, there are some things which I believe are fundamental to our Christian faith and the Genesis record is one of them.

God spoke creation into being, He did not set something in motion and then watched it evolve. To question the validity and accuracy of the Genesis record is a little more serious than to have variance on the Millenium.

Take a course in debating my friend. Learn how to fully develop your arguments and how to systematically counter the arguments of others. Most of what you write is so non-sensical that I do not know how to begin to respond. Stop making inane blanket statements which contribute nothing of substance to the topic at hand.

Let's begin again. In my previous post I brought out the organic unity between the promises God made to Abraham and their fulfillment in the church. Do you deny what Paul said in Rom 4, Gal 3, Eph 2 about those who are in Christ being the true offspring of Abraham and the true heirs of the promises God made to him?

Do you, to facilitate that denial, claim that there is a difference between Abraham and Jacob, that Israel pertains to Jacob and not to Abraham?

Try to avoid your usual tangents and try to answer those questions clearly and concisely while not forgetting to substantiate them Scripturally.

Casob wrote:
Who is this fellow Jacob? Now answer the question!

I have noticed Mr Casob, that you spend a lot of time ridiculing others and little time answering their questions or engaging in any form of reasoned, systematic discussion.

If you are trying to divorce Jacob from Abraham, read Gen 28:4; 13-15 and the many times Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are mentioned in the same context.

Like others before me I must conclude that reasoned debate from Scripture is not possible with those who have so little regard for the Word and who resort to personal attacks when they feel cornered.

We have all become conditioned as seeing sin in the light of relativity. But God sees only two responses to His Authority; submission or rebellion. There is no grey area here. We have become experts at seeing shades of grey, of seeing sins as evil, very bad, bad, quite bad, not so bad and almost excusable.

The Bible is very clear on several issues, and one of them is God's attitude towards sin. He takes it personally because it is a direct act of mutiny on His Lordship.

The Bible is also very clear on God's wrath and that He will demonstrate that wrath to the ungodly.

The question is, who are the ungodly? Are they made ungodly? Jesus told Nicodemus He had not come to condemn the world. It was not necessary, for the whole world was already condemned. The whole world was hell-bound.

From out of that hell-bound mass of humanity, Jesus redeemed His people. those whom the Father had given Him.

If we are heirs of Abraham and of the covenant promises God made to him (clear from Romans 4, Gal 3 etc), and if it is this promise which Peter refers to in Acts 2, then we must consider the position of children in the church.

The Bible clearly links circumcision with baptism as being two signs signifing the same reality, ie, the removal of sin. Baptism is called the washing of regeneration. Paul tells the Colossians that they had been circumcised in the true sense when they were regenerated by the Spirit. In that text he links baptism with circumcision. Jesus' death was referred to as both a circumcision (He was cut off) and a baptism. The link is clear.

Circumcision was not a sign of salvation, but a sign of being a member of the covenant. It contained certain promises. The same promises are contained in baptism, which is also not a sign of salvation but is a sign of the covenant.

Nowhere in the New Testament does it say that the sign of belonging to the church visible is now not to be given to infants. The Old Testament command was never abrogated, therefore it stands.

Faith cannot be divorced from believing, trusting fearing and obeying God. When Abraham acted in faith he trusted God and obeyed Him. God responded with, "Now I know that you fear Me."

The Jews who fell in the wilderness were denied entrance into Canaan because of their rebellion, their disobedience. Hebrews says they could not enter in because of unbelief.

So faith is indisolubly linked with trust, obedience, belief and fear.

The number one question however is this, from whence cometh this faith? One camp would say it is solely a gift of grace from God. This leads to a problem for the free will camp who believe you must have faith before you can go to God of your free will and ask Him to make you born again.

But if faith is not a free gift of grace from God, where does it come from? What is its origin and source? Is it produced by man? If so, when do we produce it, before or after our regeneration? If before our regeneration, what caused us to have this faith?