Passover to Tabernacles - Part Twenty One Apr 10, 2022 by: John Herbert | Series: Passover to Tabernacles Audio Study Notes PDF https://s3.amazonaws.com/cornerstonejax/sermonfiles/T001_20220410.mp3 Refresh A Recap from the Sermon Mt 21:43 “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. We will look at the re-offer of the Kingdom of the Heavens by the one new man in Christ. The full text of this message can be found by clicking the PDF button. Sunday April 10th 2022 Passover to Tabernacles Part 21 1). Mt 21:43 “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. This verse in Matthew Chapter 21 puts into the record that which effectively took place in Matthew Chapter 12, the Kingdom of the heavens that had been offered to the Jews by the Christ would be taken from the Jews and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. a). That nation we would know to be the one new man in Christ, the ‘Church’. And the ‘Church’ can be seen as a national entity in so far as it has a land which it will one day possess, a heavenly land, the Kingdom of the heavens. At the present we have no land of our own as we are estranged from the land that belongs to us, which is why at this present time we remain as strangers and pilgrims upon the earth just as those described in – Heb 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 14 For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. This nation to whom the Kingdom of the heavens was given was brought into existence on that day of Pentecost in 33AD - Acts 2:1 When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. The immersion in the Holy Spirit of the one hundred and twenty in the upper room transformed these individuals into the one new man in Christ, a new creation which was a separate entity from the eternally saved Jews, who like them had also received Christ’s message concerning the Kingdom of the heavens and had believed that He was the Christ the Son of the living God. And both these groups of eternally saved, ethnic Jews, were separated from the remainder of the eternally saved Jews who had rejected the message and the Messenger, pledging allegiance to Caesar instead. On this day of Pentecost then, following the immersion in the Holy Spirit, there were three distinct and separate groups in Jerusalem. Power Point – Slides 1-2 As the one hundred and twenty became the one new man in Christ so they were in possession of the Kingdom of the heavens. And because of what happened next, it is very clear that the one new man in Christ in possession of the Kingdom of the heavens, had a very specific task – Acts 2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance And as Peter explained to the perplexed crowd in Jerusalem that day, this was what was spoken by the prophet Joel, a prophecy pertaining exclusively to the Jewish people. And if we read what Peter had spoken that day from Joel’s prophecy, there is something we should take note of– Acts 2:16 But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 17 ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams. 18 And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; And they shall prophesy. 19 I will show wonders in heaven above And signs in the earth beneath: Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. 20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD. 21 And it shall come to pass That whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved.’ What is interesting to note is how much of Joel’s prophecy began to be fulfilled that day or indeed over the remaining years, to around 62AD. The answer would be only that seen in the first half of v17 ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh So, what about the rest of Joel’s prophecy? The rest could only and will only be fulfilled after national Israel embraces repentance. And it was the call to national repentance, through the re-offer of the Kingdom of the heavens to that group of eternally saved Jews who had previously rejected it, that was given to the one new man in Christ in the native languages of all those Jews in Jerusalem that day – Acts 2:38 Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Acts 3:19 Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, 20 and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, And as we have seen many times now, if national Jewish repentance had been forthcoming then the Lord would have returned, Joel’s prophecy would have been completely fulfilled and the Jewish nation would have gone from Jerusalem into all Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth with God’s Word and His blessings in fulfillment of their calling. b). National repentance was the key that would unlock the door to bring this about, and all the while the same generation of eternally saved Jews alive at the Lord’s first Advent remained alive, a timeframe covered by the Book of Acts, the Jews remained God’s focus of attention – Acts 17:1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. 2 Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.” And the call to national repentance was to begin on that day of Pentecost in Jerusalem. Every eternally saved Jew in Jerusalem was called upon to change their mind concerning the Christ and the Kingdom of the heavens. c). Let’s look at one example involving a miracle that took place in Solomon’s Portico shortly after - Acts 3:1 Now Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. 2 And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms from those who entered the temple; 3 who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked for alms. 4 And fixing his eyes on him, with John, Peter said, “Look at us.” 5 So he gave them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. 6 Then Peter said, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” 7 And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. 8 So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them—walking, leaping, and praising God…………….. 4:22 For the man was over forty years old on whom this miracle of healing had been performed. The lame man at the gate to the Temple carries echoes of the man at the pool of Bethesda who we had looked at some weeks back, and echoes of Jacob whose hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with the ‘Man’ during the night, and as such this certain man lame from his mother’s womb is another type of Israel in need of being healed to enable the nation to go praising God into the Gentile nations. And the fact that the certain man was over forty years old not only deals with a number showing completeness and testing but also takes us back to the forty years from the Exodus to the Jews entering the land under Joshua. And the man being over forty years old shows us the failure of the nation to fulfil their purpose even after entering the land, even to the present day. This was clearly a sign for the Jews to be seen within the context of the re-offer of the Kingdom. d). Then, to that which is pictured through this miracle, we can add what Peter said to the eternally saved Jews who witnessed the event – Acts 3:19 Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, 20 and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, 21 whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. 22 For Moses truly said to the fathers, ‘The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you. 23 And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’ 24 Yes, and all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days. 25 You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ 26 To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.” And with regards to the fulfillment of Israel’s calling we might note particularly what Peter drew their attention to in v25 You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ He drew their attention to the promise given to Abraham to be realized through the Jewish nation going to the Gentile nations in fulfillment of their calling. e). And putting all this together brought a response from many of those who saw and heard what took place at Solomon’s Portico – Acts 4:4 However, many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand. 2). And this brings us to something that has often caused trouble – Acts 2:41 Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. We should firstly note that the words ‘to them’ have been added by the translators and are not in the original language. But even if we allow them to be there for understanding’s sake, it begs the question, ‘to whom were these three thousand souls added?’ a). And this in turn brings us to one of those verses that has caused so much trouble over the years – Acts 2:46 So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. This troublesome verse is of course v47. And the reason it is troublesome is because people see in it the word ‘church’ and the word ‘saved’ and think of eternal salvation and the one new man in Christ, and here is where confusion reigns. b). To begin with, let’s remember what we have learned about this word ‘saved’, how it just means to be delivered, to be rescued from danger or destruction and of itself, it has nothing to do with eternal redemption. And with this understanding we will remember what Peter had previously said to those who had heard his sermon about being saved – Acts 2:40 And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation.” These eternally saved Jews were being exhorted to change their minds about Jesus and His message so that they would be delivered from, separated from ‘this perverse generation’, that group of eternally saved Jews who had rejected the message and the messenger and continued to reject Peter’s words. And the use of the word ‘saved’ again, just seven verses beyond its use in v40, can only refer to the same thing, deliverance from ‘this perverse generation.’ It cannot mean anything else. c). And then we have the word ‘church’ in Acts 2:47. To begin with, we should note that the word translated ‘church’ does not appear in all the original manuscripts from which our Bible is compiled. This means that the word ‘church’ appears in some English translations but not in others. d). Irrespective of this though, even if we allow the word to be there, exactly who would it be talking about? Perhaps we will remember that the word translated ‘church’ simply means an assembly. It does not have all the connotations attached to it that the use of this word has come to have today. And so, we must separate it from all that ‘Church’ has come to mean and let it say simply what it says, an assembly. e). As we began today, we identified three distinct groups in Jerusalem on that day of Pentecost. We identified the one new man in Christ comprised of the one hundred and twenty in the upper room, an unspecified number of eternally saved Jews, who like the one hundred and twenty had also received Christ’s message concerning the Kingdom of the heavens and had believed that He is the Christ the Son of the living God, and those who had rejected the message and the Messenger. f). There are then only two of these groups, two of these assemblies, to whom those being saved out of that perverse generation could be added. They could only be added to the one new man in Christ or added to those Jews who had believed that Jesus is the Christ but were not part of the one hundred and twenty. So, which would it be? g). The answer should be obvious for us if we keep in mind the purpose given to the one new man in Christ; to re-offer the Kingdom of the heavens to those who had previously rejected it to bring about national Jewish repentance with a view to fulfilling Jewish prophecy. And as we had said earlier, this was to begin with every Jew in Jerusalem on that day of Pentecost. h). Let’s add these verses into this picture – 1 Co 12:13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. Ga 3:27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Those one hundred and twenty eternally saved Jews who became the one new man in Christ on the day of Pentecost, ethnically remained Jews, their ministry was to the Jews and their focus was on the Jews, but they themselves, now being the one new man, the new creation, could no longer be considered Jews, ‘there is neither Jew nor Greek’. Nor could they be, because they were in possession of the Kingdom of the heavens and this Kingdom had been taken from the Jews. i). So, if the eternally saved Jews on the day of Pentecost and indeed those throughout the Acts period following their repentance were added to the one new man in Christ, they all would have ceased to be Jews. And if this had been so, how then could Jewish national repentance ever have been achieved? And if every Jew in the entire nation had responded to the call to repentance and become part of the one new man in Christ, the Jewish nation would have ceased to exist, an impossibility. j). There was then only one group, one assembly, to whom those delivered from that perverse generation could have been added and that was the group, separate from the one hundred and twenty, who had received the message of the Kingdom of the heavens and believed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. k). And every eternally saved Jew during the Acts period who believed in like manner would have been added to this group of Jews, not the one new man in Christ, bringing national repentance ever closer. Power Point – Slides 3-7 If we can settle in our understanding that the calling given to the one new man in Christ on that day of Pentecost had to do with the Jewish people and national repentance so that Israel’s calling and the Gentile nations’ blessings could be fulfilled, then we will have every chance of not misinterpreting what takes place in the Book of Acts. 3). We had begun this morning by seeing how the events of Matthew Chapter 12, where the offer of the Kingdom of the heavens to the Jews by the Christ was essentially terminated, was then set in the record in Matthew Chapter 21. And we had seen that following those climactic events in Matthew Chapter 12, the ‘Church’ was then brought to the fore in Matthew Chapter 13. a). And the same thing is seen in the Book of Acts in relation to the re-offer of the Kingdom of the heavens to the Jews by the one new man in Christ. b). The climactic event in Acts that parallels Matthew Chapter 12 is the stoning of Stephen in Acts Chapter 7. Stephen’s address to the nation’s religious leaders drew entirely from Moses, the prophets and the Psalms and was a call to repentance to the Jews that was so powerful that it produced an unprecedented reaction in the heavens and a somewhat predictable reaction upon the earth - Acts 7:54 When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. 55 But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, 56 and said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” 57 Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; 58 and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” This then is the point in the Book of Acts that effectively marks the point of no return of the re-offer of the Kingdom to Israel which would then be taken exclusively to the Gentiles. c). But as we saw in Matthew’s Gospel, it is sometime after this climactic event before its outcome is set in the record – Acts 28:24 And some were persuaded by the things which were spoken, and some disbelieved. 25 So when they did not agree among themselves, they departed after Paul had said one word: “The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers, 26 saying, ‘Go to this people and say: “Hearing you will hear, and shall not understand; And seeing you will see, and not perceive; 27 For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.” ’ 28 “Therefore let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear it!” And we had seen in Matthew that after the climactic events of Chapter 12 the ‘Church’ was introduced in Chapter 13. And in the Book of Acts, at the climactic moment of Stephen’s stoning, so the Gentiles who would comprise the ‘Church’ are also brought to the fore through the introduction of one man, And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. Saul is of course Paul, who would become the Apostle to the Gentiles – Ro 11:13 For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles……… Had the Jews responded positively to Stephen’s impassioned plea that day then there would have been no need for Paul or his ministry. However, that was not what took place as we know. We will continue with this next time, if we remain and the Lord is willing, and we have prayed. Passover to Tabernacles - Part Twenty One Apr 10, 2022 Speaker: John Herbert Series: Passover to Tabernacles Category: Sunday Morning https://s3.amazonaws.com/cornerstonejax/sermonfiles/T001_20220410.mp3 Download Audio x
Refresh A Recap from the Sermon Mt 21:43 “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. We will look at the re-offer of the Kingdom of the Heavens by the one new man in Christ. The full text of this message can be found by clicking the PDF button. Sunday April 10th 2022 Passover to Tabernacles Part 21 1). Mt 21:43 “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. This verse in Matthew Chapter 21 puts into the record that which effectively took place in Matthew Chapter 12, the Kingdom of the heavens that had been offered to the Jews by the Christ would be taken from the Jews and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. a). That nation we would know to be the one new man in Christ, the ‘Church’. And the ‘Church’ can be seen as a national entity in so far as it has a land which it will one day possess, a heavenly land, the Kingdom of the heavens. At the present we have no land of our own as we are estranged from the land that belongs to us, which is why at this present time we remain as strangers and pilgrims upon the earth just as those described in – Heb 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 14 For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. This nation to whom the Kingdom of the heavens was given was brought into existence on that day of Pentecost in 33AD - Acts 2:1 When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. The immersion in the Holy Spirit of the one hundred and twenty in the upper room transformed these individuals into the one new man in Christ, a new creation which was a separate entity from the eternally saved Jews, who like them had also received Christ’s message concerning the Kingdom of the heavens and had believed that He was the Christ the Son of the living God. And both these groups of eternally saved, ethnic Jews, were separated from the remainder of the eternally saved Jews who had rejected the message and the Messenger, pledging allegiance to Caesar instead. On this day of Pentecost then, following the immersion in the Holy Spirit, there were three distinct and separate groups in Jerusalem. Power Point – Slides 1-2 As the one hundred and twenty became the one new man in Christ so they were in possession of the Kingdom of the heavens. And because of what happened next, it is very clear that the one new man in Christ in possession of the Kingdom of the heavens, had a very specific task – Acts 2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance And as Peter explained to the perplexed crowd in Jerusalem that day, this was what was spoken by the prophet Joel, a prophecy pertaining exclusively to the Jewish people. And if we read what Peter had spoken that day from Joel’s prophecy, there is something we should take note of– Acts 2:16 But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 17 ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams. 18 And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; And they shall prophesy. 19 I will show wonders in heaven above And signs in the earth beneath: Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. 20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD. 21 And it shall come to pass That whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved.’ What is interesting to note is how much of Joel’s prophecy began to be fulfilled that day or indeed over the remaining years, to around 62AD. The answer would be only that seen in the first half of v17 ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh So, what about the rest of Joel’s prophecy? The rest could only and will only be fulfilled after national Israel embraces repentance. And it was the call to national repentance, through the re-offer of the Kingdom of the heavens to that group of eternally saved Jews who had previously rejected it, that was given to the one new man in Christ in the native languages of all those Jews in Jerusalem that day – Acts 2:38 Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Acts 3:19 Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, 20 and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, And as we have seen many times now, if national Jewish repentance had been forthcoming then the Lord would have returned, Joel’s prophecy would have been completely fulfilled and the Jewish nation would have gone from Jerusalem into all Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth with God’s Word and His blessings in fulfillment of their calling. b). National repentance was the key that would unlock the door to bring this about, and all the while the same generation of eternally saved Jews alive at the Lord’s first Advent remained alive, a timeframe covered by the Book of Acts, the Jews remained God’s focus of attention – Acts 17:1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. 2 Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.” And the call to national repentance was to begin on that day of Pentecost in Jerusalem. Every eternally saved Jew in Jerusalem was called upon to change their mind concerning the Christ and the Kingdom of the heavens. c). Let’s look at one example involving a miracle that took place in Solomon’s Portico shortly after - Acts 3:1 Now Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. 2 And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms from those who entered the temple; 3 who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked for alms. 4 And fixing his eyes on him, with John, Peter said, “Look at us.” 5 So he gave them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. 6 Then Peter said, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” 7 And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. 8 So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them—walking, leaping, and praising God…………….. 4:22 For the man was over forty years old on whom this miracle of healing had been performed. The lame man at the gate to the Temple carries echoes of the man at the pool of Bethesda who we had looked at some weeks back, and echoes of Jacob whose hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with the ‘Man’ during the night, and as such this certain man lame from his mother’s womb is another type of Israel in need of being healed to enable the nation to go praising God into the Gentile nations. And the fact that the certain man was over forty years old not only deals with a number showing completeness and testing but also takes us back to the forty years from the Exodus to the Jews entering the land under Joshua. And the man being over forty years old shows us the failure of the nation to fulfil their purpose even after entering the land, even to the present day. This was clearly a sign for the Jews to be seen within the context of the re-offer of the Kingdom. d). Then, to that which is pictured through this miracle, we can add what Peter said to the eternally saved Jews who witnessed the event – Acts 3:19 Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, 20 and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, 21 whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. 22 For Moses truly said to the fathers, ‘The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you. 23 And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’ 24 Yes, and all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days. 25 You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ 26 To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.” And with regards to the fulfillment of Israel’s calling we might note particularly what Peter drew their attention to in v25 You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ He drew their attention to the promise given to Abraham to be realized through the Jewish nation going to the Gentile nations in fulfillment of their calling. e). And putting all this together brought a response from many of those who saw and heard what took place at Solomon’s Portico – Acts 4:4 However, many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand. 2). And this brings us to something that has often caused trouble – Acts 2:41 Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. We should firstly note that the words ‘to them’ have been added by the translators and are not in the original language. But even if we allow them to be there for understanding’s sake, it begs the question, ‘to whom were these three thousand souls added?’ a). And this in turn brings us to one of those verses that has caused so much trouble over the years – Acts 2:46 So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. This troublesome verse is of course v47. And the reason it is troublesome is because people see in it the word ‘church’ and the word ‘saved’ and think of eternal salvation and the one new man in Christ, and here is where confusion reigns. b). To begin with, let’s remember what we have learned about this word ‘saved’, how it just means to be delivered, to be rescued from danger or destruction and of itself, it has nothing to do with eternal redemption. And with this understanding we will remember what Peter had previously said to those who had heard his sermon about being saved – Acts 2:40 And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation.” These eternally saved Jews were being exhorted to change their minds about Jesus and His message so that they would be delivered from, separated from ‘this perverse generation’, that group of eternally saved Jews who had rejected the message and the messenger and continued to reject Peter’s words. And the use of the word ‘saved’ again, just seven verses beyond its use in v40, can only refer to the same thing, deliverance from ‘this perverse generation.’ It cannot mean anything else. c). And then we have the word ‘church’ in Acts 2:47. To begin with, we should note that the word translated ‘church’ does not appear in all the original manuscripts from which our Bible is compiled. This means that the word ‘church’ appears in some English translations but not in others. d). Irrespective of this though, even if we allow the word to be there, exactly who would it be talking about? Perhaps we will remember that the word translated ‘church’ simply means an assembly. It does not have all the connotations attached to it that the use of this word has come to have today. And so, we must separate it from all that ‘Church’ has come to mean and let it say simply what it says, an assembly. e). As we began today, we identified three distinct groups in Jerusalem on that day of Pentecost. We identified the one new man in Christ comprised of the one hundred and twenty in the upper room, an unspecified number of eternally saved Jews, who like the one hundred and twenty had also received Christ’s message concerning the Kingdom of the heavens and had believed that He is the Christ the Son of the living God, and those who had rejected the message and the Messenger. f). There are then only two of these groups, two of these assemblies, to whom those being saved out of that perverse generation could be added. They could only be added to the one new man in Christ or added to those Jews who had believed that Jesus is the Christ but were not part of the one hundred and twenty. So, which would it be? g). The answer should be obvious for us if we keep in mind the purpose given to the one new man in Christ; to re-offer the Kingdom of the heavens to those who had previously rejected it to bring about national Jewish repentance with a view to fulfilling Jewish prophecy. And as we had said earlier, this was to begin with every Jew in Jerusalem on that day of Pentecost. h). Let’s add these verses into this picture – 1 Co 12:13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. Ga 3:27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Those one hundred and twenty eternally saved Jews who became the one new man in Christ on the day of Pentecost, ethnically remained Jews, their ministry was to the Jews and their focus was on the Jews, but they themselves, now being the one new man, the new creation, could no longer be considered Jews, ‘there is neither Jew nor Greek’. Nor could they be, because they were in possession of the Kingdom of the heavens and this Kingdom had been taken from the Jews. i). So, if the eternally saved Jews on the day of Pentecost and indeed those throughout the Acts period following their repentance were added to the one new man in Christ, they all would have ceased to be Jews. And if this had been so, how then could Jewish national repentance ever have been achieved? And if every Jew in the entire nation had responded to the call to repentance and become part of the one new man in Christ, the Jewish nation would have ceased to exist, an impossibility. j). There was then only one group, one assembly, to whom those delivered from that perverse generation could have been added and that was the group, separate from the one hundred and twenty, who had received the message of the Kingdom of the heavens and believed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. k). And every eternally saved Jew during the Acts period who believed in like manner would have been added to this group of Jews, not the one new man in Christ, bringing national repentance ever closer. Power Point – Slides 3-7 If we can settle in our understanding that the calling given to the one new man in Christ on that day of Pentecost had to do with the Jewish people and national repentance so that Israel’s calling and the Gentile nations’ blessings could be fulfilled, then we will have every chance of not misinterpreting what takes place in the Book of Acts. 3). We had begun this morning by seeing how the events of Matthew Chapter 12, where the offer of the Kingdom of the heavens to the Jews by the Christ was essentially terminated, was then set in the record in Matthew Chapter 21. And we had seen that following those climactic events in Matthew Chapter 12, the ‘Church’ was then brought to the fore in Matthew Chapter 13. a). And the same thing is seen in the Book of Acts in relation to the re-offer of the Kingdom of the heavens to the Jews by the one new man in Christ. b). The climactic event in Acts that parallels Matthew Chapter 12 is the stoning of Stephen in Acts Chapter 7. Stephen’s address to the nation’s religious leaders drew entirely from Moses, the prophets and the Psalms and was a call to repentance to the Jews that was so powerful that it produced an unprecedented reaction in the heavens and a somewhat predictable reaction upon the earth - Acts 7:54 When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. 55 But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, 56 and said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” 57 Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; 58 and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” This then is the point in the Book of Acts that effectively marks the point of no return of the re-offer of the Kingdom to Israel which would then be taken exclusively to the Gentiles. c). But as we saw in Matthew’s Gospel, it is sometime after this climactic event before its outcome is set in the record – Acts 28:24 And some were persuaded by the things which were spoken, and some disbelieved. 25 So when they did not agree among themselves, they departed after Paul had said one word: “The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers, 26 saying, ‘Go to this people and say: “Hearing you will hear, and shall not understand; And seeing you will see, and not perceive; 27 For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.” ’ 28 “Therefore let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear it!” And we had seen in Matthew that after the climactic events of Chapter 12 the ‘Church’ was introduced in Chapter 13. And in the Book of Acts, at the climactic moment of Stephen’s stoning, so the Gentiles who would comprise the ‘Church’ are also brought to the fore through the introduction of one man, And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. Saul is of course Paul, who would become the Apostle to the Gentiles – Ro 11:13 For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles……… Had the Jews responded positively to Stephen’s impassioned plea that day then there would have been no need for Paul or his ministry. However, that was not what took place as we know. We will continue with this next time, if we remain and the Lord is willing, and we have prayed.