Find out what the Greek word ekklesia means. Its the word translated as church in the King James Version and in most other English translations after 1611.
William Tyndale was the first to create an English translation using Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. His English translation of 1522 used
Erasmus�s Greek New Testament, known as the Textus Receptus.
Tyndale did not translate ekklesia as church. Instead, he translated it as congregation. And this is correct. Ekklesia means an assembly.
When John Darby and his associates the Plymouth Brethren in England starting in the 1830's and passed on by the late 19th century to C.I. Scofield in America created the theology called dispenationmalism he and other dispensationalists took the word "church" and said the "church" stands as a second and independent group of God's people. The dispensationalists teach that the Jews remain the chosen people contradicting scripture (I Peter 2: 9 and Paul in Romans and Galatians).
The "congregation" or "assembly" of the Israel of God (Galatians 6: 16) under dispensationalism became a concept than is claimed to stand alongside physical Israel, the Jews. But the New Testament does not use "church" in this way. You will find the Body of Christ or the saints in the New Testament to describe God's people, and a few times the "assembly" is generalized as a collective of assemblies. But the "assembly" or "congregation" is not used to point to a group of people who are different from
the Israel of God, or born again Israel.
What is missed in the use of the congregation as a group who stands almost equal to the Jews by dispensationalism is the transformation of physical Israel under the Old Covenant to Israel reborn in Christ in the New Covenant.
In the Old Covenant, everything was physical and literal. - entry into Israel was by having the literal and physical DNA from Abraham, that is, being his physical seed. Circumcision was done on a part of the physical body of male Jews. The temple in Jerusalem was a physical building.
Under the New Covenant circumcision is done away with and Paul opposes it. The physical seed of Abraham becomes his spiritual seed (Galatians 3: 29), and the physical temple - hieron - is replaced by the bodies of believers now being the temple of God - the naos - in John 2: 19, I Corinthians 3: 16 and I Corinthians 6: 19.
This transformation of physical Israel to Israel reborn in Christ is predicted to occur in the Old Testament. " I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down." II Kings 21: 13.
"Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay..." Isaiah 29: 16
"O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as the potter? saith the Lord." Jeremiah 18: 1-6. God made one vessel and found it marred and made of the same lump of clay another vessel which seemed good to him as the potter.
Those under the influence of dispensationalism often have difficulty in reading the numerous metaphors in Scripture, even Paul's simple metaphor of calling Israel Jerusalem, for example in Galatians 4: 24-26.
So, Israel reborn in Jesus Christ is not the "church," because an ekklesia or congregation or assembly can be a group of Jews who reject Christ, that is, a synagogue, or it can be a congregation of those born again and children of God.
Also, since 1954 and the passage of legislation authorizing the churches to have IRS tax exempt status - 501(c)(3) - as incorporated bodies under the Internal Revenue Service, the "church" has taken on the meaning of being an incorporated body under the federal government. The federal government, not Christ, is then the head of the "church." The "church" is then under the First Beast of Revelation 13.
When God's Word says all Israel will be saved after the full number of Gentiles have been saved that is exactly what it means. And this will occur when a great multitude from every Gentile nation tribe and language have been saved during the Great Tribulation as per Rev 7:9,14.
There will be no pre-trib dispensationalist fairy tale rapture of the church saints before the Tribulation.
Revelation 13:9,10: He who has an ear, let him hear. If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity he will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword he will be killed. This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints."
Revelation 12:17: They overcame him {Satan & 666} by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.
"When God's Word says all Israel will be saved after the full number of Gentiles have been saved that is exactly what it means. And this will occur when a great multitude from every Gentile nation tribe and language have been saved during the Great Tribulation as per Rev 7:9,14."
There is no distinction between physical Israel and the Gentiles in the New Testament. "There is neither Jew nor Greek...for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3: 28
Even on this forum it is becoming more and more clear that dispensationalism has been a false theology for over a century which has been working toward a last days mingling of the Old Covenant with the New Covenant, which is of the spirit of anti-Christ.
In a deceptive way dispensationalism has taught its two house doctrine that God has two peoples, the Jews and the "church." But it turns out that dispensationalism's mingling of the covenants hinges on its teaching that the Jews are to be saved in mass in the end times and this will be a sort of different "dispensation," or even a "new covenant."
John Hagee and his Christians United For Israel encourages a worship of the Jews and the nation of Israel, which is a more open plan for the mingling of the covenants in the last days. Hagee is not as deceptive as dispensationalism, because he domes right out and says Christians must become one with the Jews somehow.
In order for the mingling of the covenants to go forward, Romans 11: 26 is a key verse which cannot be allowed to be interpreted according to Romans 9: 6-8, Romans 2: 28-29, Galatians 4: 24-26, Galatians 3: 28-29 and Hebrews 10: 9.
Scripture cannot be allowed to interpret scripture as far as Romans 11: 26 is concerned.
"Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision." This verse now takes on a new meaning for those caught up in dispensationalism than it did when Billy Graham used to quote it. A valley in scripture indicates a low spiritual state, while being on the mountains always signals a spiritual high. Those who have the decision to make about whether to follow dispensationalism and the other two house theologies - Messianic Judaism, Hebrew Roots, the Mormons - into an end time mingling of the covenants are in a low spiritual state. To get out of this low place, they need to seek the Holy Spirit for the truth of scripture. They need more of Christ and his mind in them than they need to be preoccupied with physical Israel. Only a small Remnant of physical Israel can be fully converted to Christ. The others of Messianic Judaism are mingling the covenants.
