Tradition must give way to the clear statements of the Scripture

We looked last week at the time statements in the Bible as to the coming of the Lord. We saw that he said he would come -- while some that were standing there were still living; in that generation; soon; quickly; at hand; he said his coming was near. Everywhere that the Bible talks about the Lord's coming it gives us a time statement. The NT saints fully expected the Lord to return in their lifetime.  How could we possibly miss this? Yet the majority of believers today, some two thousand years later are still saying that the Lord will return soon. Can the same event be imminent at two different periods of time separated by two thousand years? Someone said to me that they felt that the Lord said he was coming soon because he wanted every generation to be watching for Him.  Think about that. What that means is that when he told the first century believers that he was coming back soon, he really didn't mean it, he was giving them false information to keep them looking for Him. Ca...

  Justification by Faith Alone (The Relation of Faith to Justification ) Dr. Joel R. Beeke Justification by faith alone was Martin Luther's great spiritual and theological breakthrough. It did not come easily. He had tried everything from sleeping on hard floors and fasting to climbing a staircase in Rome while kneeling in prayer. Monasteries, disciplines, confessions, masses, absolutions, good works-all proved fruitless. Peace with God eluded him. The thought of the righteousness of God pursued him. He hated the very word "righteousness," which he believed provided a divine mandate to condemn him. Light finally dawned for Luther as he mediated on Romans 1:17, " For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith ." Justification by Faith Alone (The Relation of Faith to Justification) by Joel Beeke

And so all Israel, etc. Many understand this of the Jewish people, as though Paul had said, that religion would again be restored among them as before: but I extend the word Israel to all the people of God, according to this meaning, When the Gentiles shall come in, the Jews also shall return from their defection to the obedience of faith; and thus shall be completed the salvation of the whole Israel of God, which must be gathered from both; and yet in such a way that the Jews shall obtain the first place, being as it were the first-born in Gods family. This interpretation seems to me the most suitable, because Paul intended here to set forth the completion of the kingdom of Christ, which is by no means to be confined to the Jews, but is to include the whole world. The same manner of speaking we find in Galatians 6:16. The Israel of God is what he calls the Church, gathered alike from Jews and Gentiles; and he sets the people, thus collected from their dispersion, in opposition to the ...

"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." ( Matthew 24:35). It has been generally believed that Jesus here meant that even though these physical heavens and earth will pass away some day, that is not true about His word which will never pass away. Whether this physical earth and solar system ever passes away is not the point in this chapter. There is more to this statement of Jesus than meets the eye. Jesus has been talking in apocalyptic language, and heaven and earth passing away could mean here just what He has been talking about - that the heaven and earth of the old Jewish order will pass away, and that His word concerning all this is sure to come to pass. Heaven and Earth Shall Pass Away

  Berean Bible Church The Rapture -- Physical or Spiritual? We talked last week about the passing away of the old heaven and earth and the establishment of the new heaven and earth. I stated that we are NOW living in the new heaven and earth. Obviously I don't view the new heaven and earth as physical, we are certainly not living in a physical paradise. I believe that the new heaven and earth is a spiritual reality. I believe that Isaiah 65-66 and 2 Peter 3 and Revelation 21-22 speak of spiritual truths not physical truths. Am I spiritualizing too much of the Bible? Is it wrong to make spiritual application to things or is it the way that things should be interpreted?

Henry on the Seven Sayings - by Michael Phillips Seven Sayings, The - Sermon 1 of 7 Tonight, with God's blessing, we'll start a new Puritan study called Matthew Henry on the Seven Sayings. The seven sayings , of course, refer to the words of our Lord on the cross. I'm slow to find symbolism in the numbers of the Bible, but here I think we have some. If seven is the number of ...

A Study of New Testament Eschatology: "But what is the common interpretation of Matthew 24? Is it not that Christ was really talking about two entirely different things as if they were one? Yes, this is the common interpretation. Many say that Jesus from this point on as he answers his disciples is not only talking about [1] the coming destruction of Jerusalem (which took place in 70 A.D.); but also [2] the second coming of Christ and the end of the age (which is still future). They say that he was giving us signs of both of these events together. So the false Christs, and false prophets, and the wars, earthquakes, famines, etc., were not only intended as signs for that generation to warn them of the impending destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple but also intended as signs to people destined to live many centuries later warning them of the nearness of Christ's second coming. With this interpretation we cannot agree. We do not think it is true that our Lord uses one set of w...