UNDERSTANDING SOME ESSENTIAL MATTERS

 

                       UNDERSTANDING SOME ESSENTIAL MATTERS.                              

 

                                                        UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE.

     The Bible is absolutely foundational for Christianity, next to the experience of salvation itself. The Bible is divine- it is God condescending to speak to mankind. By the Bible we learn about God, and we learn about ourselves, about sin and its consequences, about our duties on earth, and about redemption and its glories. For these reasons it is vital to have free access to the Bible in our own language, in as scrupulously correct and accurately translated a version as is humanly possible.
Amazingly, although all evangelicals claim allegiance to the Bible there is a shockingly level of ignorance and error accepted as to what the Bible actually is. This must be thoroughly remedied and reversed if the church is to return to healthy obedience, and be pleasing to God and be blessed by him again today.
THE BIBLE IS INSPIRED.
The library of sixty-six Book making up the Bible are all totally and fully inspired by God. Most evangelicals would confess as much in words, but few are agreed on just what such a statement actually means. Most agree that the terms means God-breathed, and also agree that God the Holy Spirit overshadowed certain men in history, and miraculously empowered them to receive messages from God, and write them down without error, and that all sum total of these revelations, collected together, comprise the Bible. The Bible, thus revealed and produced, was 100% without error (infallible.) At this stage many, even those claiming to be Bible-believing evangelicals, pause and say that this inspiration was vested in the ‘original autographs’ (which have of course long been lost), leaving the door ajar for possible errors and corruptions in later copying and translation. Others, on the other hand, recognise a providential preservation of the Bible text, including preservation of its purity through faithful and accurate translation (correctly inerrancy) over time. Those who would restrict inspiration to the autographs in fact restrict inspiration to the writers, the pen-men. They were inspired men. On the contrary true Bible believers also recognise inspiration in the content. In other words not only were the writers inspired, but they produced an inspired Book. The Bible is inspired.
It may be asked, then, where in the Bible does this quality of inspiration reside? The answer is that the Bible is like a living body, an organic unity. We might ask, where in the human body does the soul reside? The answer is: everywhere. Touch the body anywhere, and you touch were the soul is. Touch the Bible anywhere, and you touch were its inspiration is. Of course we recognise that, over the centuries of copying and translating, scribal errors have crept into various manuscripts and copies, and that there has been deliberate distortion and falsification practiced by heretics on occasion. To prevent this would have required a continued and stupendous miracle. Inerrancy: the divine preservation down though time of the Bible text does not mandate such a miracle, but it does mandate the use of believing, sanctified, scholarship to identify and remove these occasional blemishes, by examination of the mass of surviving manuscripts, within a believing context.
It may then be asked, on this basis, how are we to regard a Bible that not as accurate as it might be, that contains mis-translations? We should refer to our understanding of the Bible as being like a living body. If a man has, say, a glass eye or a wooden leg, that does not mean that his soul does not reside in his body: it just does not reside in the artificial part. So with a flawed or poorly translated Bible. The quality of inspiration cannot reside in the artificial part as that part is dead. But it does exist in all the rest, that are not so flawed. However, the existence of such versions should urge us to labour for the most scrupulously accurate underlying Hebrew and Greek texts, and then most accurate translations possible (a sacred task and our role in God’s preservation of his Bible). Given faithful translations from accurate texts we can have no hesitation in holding up our Bibles and saying, truthfully, this is GOD’S INSPIRED WORD. This Book is HOLY.
 DIVINE AND HUMAN IN THE BIBLE.
On the very face of it the Bible is clearly both a human and a divine Book. There is much confusion and error surrounding this point. Liberals and Rationalists reduce the divine factor as far as they can, even to eliminating it altogether (miracles become mythology, and the human authors were liable to error). On the other hand some ultra-Biblicists so reduce the human factor as to make the sacred writers hardly more than machines or secretaries under God’s dictation.
Readers of the Bible quickly note that the writers employ highly different writing styles, clearly revealing vastly different personalities. They are clearly real human beings. But how then did they, culturally bound in specific limited historical situations, produce the Bible as we know it at all? How may we understand the dynamics of the production of the Bible, and so appreciate what the Bible really is? This is a problem that many have stumbled over.
Firstly we need to keep in mind what has been said about INSPIRATION. All the Bible is inspired by God. Thus we have no hesitation in stating that the message, the contents, of the Bible is 100% divine. Thus there is no ‘human element’ in the content of the sixty-six Books comprising the Bible, and it contains no errors (it is all error-free or infallible).
Secondly we note that there many things in the Bible, especially in the historical Books that are secular matters, historical facts, census records and so on, all freely available from extra-Biblical secular records. Are these facts and statements, often culled from pagan sources, then inspired? The answer is YES. This is because as they feature in the Bible they have been selected from these sources, by God the Holy Spirit, via the called Bible writer, in order to serve a divine purpose. In this case the inspiration of the writer lies in infallibly guided selection, and as a result the record so incorporated into the Bible partakes of the inspiration of the whole.
What then of the sharply different writing styles of the various Bible writers? Is not this the human side showing through?  To clarify: we have a uniform content moving from Genesis to Revelation in the unfolding and outworking of God’s plan, perfectly and errorlessly penned by the succession of inspired writers, and  also many different writing styles employed by those writers, from Moses to John the Apostle. Here we must reemphasise a most important point: the basis of the interface of the divine and the human elements in the Bible lies in this: The Bible has only one AUTHOR. That is, God the Holy Spirit. The Bible has many WRITERS. They are in so sense authors, and should never be referred to as such.
The question then arises, how can the writers vary so much and yet produce writings that are 100% inspired by one and the same Holy Spirit?  A stumbling block to some, in fact this is easily explained. God selected and ordained each pen-man, molding each unique personality, with all its individual traits, to be exactly what God required, to receive the grace of inspiration and under it pen exactly the Books of the Bible he was prepared for, in exactly way and words that God ordained. Those individual styles were produced by God, providentially, to be exactly what was necessary and thus ordained for each individual Book or section of the Bible. The divine controls the human, without extinguishing it, because it is the ordained and prepared human element that was necessary. The Bible is thus 100% human, and also, at the same time, 100% divine, because the divine controls the human, and employs it.
We might make a comparison here with Christ’s own nature, especially as manifested during his time on earth. Christ was 100% man, and simultaneously 100% divine, man and God combined without confusion. Many can confess this, but fail to grasp what exactly is meant, because it is far above human logic and reasoning, yet we should be able to understand the basics of it. What we need to grasp is that to say and confess that Christ was 100% human, a real man, is far from being the whole truth. Christ was man, yes, but he was A UNIQUE man. He was perfect, sinless, flawless. So in  becoming man Christ did not just become a real man, but far more than any man is or has been since the fall. Christ was 100% God, and also 100% perfect man. We must keep this in mind. The divine infused and interacted with the human, making it also sinlessly perfect and keeping it so. These are not two wholenesses occupying the same space, but two sides of the same coin.
We see a similar factor with the Bible. There is a constant human element- the varied personas of the chosen writers- but those personas, with all their personal and individual idiosyncrasies, were CREATED and MOLDED by the divine, so as to be perfect mediums for the receipt, recording, and transmission of God’s infallible word. God controlled the entire process, so that the CONTENT of the Bible is 100% error-less, although penned by men who were themselves flawed sinners. Each unique personality and style was thus the outcome of Gods creating, electing, calling, and preparing just that specific personality, at that specific time and cultural situation, to pen exactly what was to be revealed at that time. This is the great wonder and mystery of Scripture. The result, the Bible we hold in our hands in our own languages, is 100% divine, though penned 100% by men like ourselves.
The Bible is Holy, because although it has many pen-men it has only one author, God himself, and God is Holy.

UNDERSTANDING THE SABBATH.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SABBATH.
The Sabbath is not just a creation mandate, a foundational matter established even before man’s fall (and thus hugely pre-dating the written Law) but in fact there is much more to it than even that. Assuming that, as Bible believers, we accept the literal history of the Creation account in Genesis (as we must) it has been asked many times: ‘Why did God chose to create all things over a six day period?’ Surely as God is omnipotent he could have simply created everything in an instant of time by sheer divine decree. Why did he spread the creation out over six days, followed by a day of rest?’ Almost no theologian has ever answered that query, beyond a bland ‘Because God chose to do so.’ However, there is a reason, and a most important one at that. The whole record of Creation testifies to the vital importance of the Sabbath day! God spread the creative process over six literal days, in order to then set aside an equal literal day for his closer worship. That is the whole purpose of the six Creative days- to culminate in the Sabbath or God’s special holy day of rest. Seen in this light the Sabbath is fundamental to our every existence, the very foundation of our created and intended life-cycle. In other words: everything was created over six days- in order for there to be a Sabbath Day after that.
To fail to understand this, to fail to keep (the whole) Sabbath day holy is to deny the very origin of our creation by God, to rebel against the life rhythm ordained by God, and thus to turn our backs on acknowledging of creature status, and to deny ourselves the blessing offered by the day of communion and fellowship with our Creator. Even in the Garden before the fall of man some of man’s attention over the six working days had to be spent to his (then delightful) work in the Garden, but, following God’s own example, all this was to be put aside on the Sabbath, when all the attention was to be on worship of, and loving intercommunication with, the Creator. Of course we should never forget God, even in the hurry and bustle of our necessary employments, and we should constantly strive to do everything to the glory of God, but on the Sabbath the focus shifts, to God and God alone, with spiritual refreshment and blessing in the closer loving relationship and communion between the Almighty and his saved and loving people. How greatly, then, do those who profess to be God’s saved and worshipping flock insult and slight their dear Creator, and how much blessing do then cut themselves off from, when the restrict Sabbath keeping to attending church services, and reserved the rest of the day to themselves!
The Sabbath is fundamental to our physical and above all spiritual welfare. Established by a Creation mandate even before the fall of man, and reiterated within the very core of God’s written Law, the Sabbath defines our ability to have an active and productive relationship with our Creator and Redeemer.
The importance of Sabbath keeping CANNOT BE OVERSTATED
CHRISTIAN OBEDIENCE ILLUSTRATED IN SABBATH KEEPING.
One of the most glaring and damaging failings among today’s professing Bible-believing Christians is lack of simply obedience to God. All around there is manifest a tendency to, as it were, attempt to negotiate and divide, to decide how much to give to God and how much to reserve to people’s own discretion, rather than surrender and child-like obedience to the Almighty. One stark example of this failing concerns Sabbath keeping. In most evangelical and even in Reformed circles few nowadays are prepared to keep the whole Lord’s Day (Christian Sabbath) holy. The consensus seems to be that the times(s) of public worship service are holy, but that the remainder of the days is ours (providing no gross sin is involved). This assumption is not remembering the Sabbath day to keep it holy, nor turning away our foot from doing our own pleasure on God’s holy day.
To illustrate this serious error let us consider and incident from the Old Testament. In Numbers Chapter eight we read how the Israelites rebelled and began to speak against Moses and God himself, and as a result: The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said,  We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that everyone that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. (Numbers 8:6-9, King James Version.)
Now let us suppose there was a man in the congregation, say a leading man and head of a family, who was genuinely pious and sincerely God-fearing, truly trusting in humble faith in the coming promised seed of the woman the Messiah Saviour, and who had not been involved in the rebellion and blasphemy that brought the disastrous chastisement on the people. Then let us suppose that in this crisis situation this fine believer went into the darkest recesses of his tent, fell on his knees or on his face, and engaged long  in fervent, agonising, wresting prayer to God, imploring a cessation of the plague of serpents. Such prayer is a fine, a wonderful, things. It greatly blesses those who engage in it in faith. But would the serpents have been taken away? Certainly not!  Why not? Simply because this would NOT have been what God mandated! The blessing (safety or healing from the serpent bites) was ordained by looking (in faith) at the bronze serpent, not by prayer in this case. In the same way today Sunday meetings and worship, public prayer and preaching and proclamation of the word, administering the sacraments in the church, godly and loving fellowship under true pastoral shepherding are all great and wonderful, blessed, things. But what if there is MORE that God has mandated for His day, and those things are NOT being observed by the people? God has clearly required that his people remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. That is NOT keep service time holy, or part of the day holy. The entire day is God’s and must be kept as special and distinct as possible from all other days. turn away your foot from doing your pleasure on my holy day, says the Lord. If we fail to do this we are like the pious Israelite who prayed earnestly, but did not OBEY the Lord. It is by obedience that the blessing is received. No obedience, no blessing. The Sabbath, truly kept, is intended to be a spiritual preparation, a boost, a protection, for the coming secular week. It is a two-way thing, our honouring and obeying God, and his blessing us in grace. Without that obedience there is no grace granted for the week to come. If that week goes badly we should not be surprised. As with so much the key is obedience. Obedience is the test of faith.
THE SABBATH DAY CHANGED.
     Having understood the importance of the Sabbath and of Sabbath-keeping, the question naturally arises: ‘What day IS the Sabbath?’ Certainly the principle is that one day in the seven days that make up the week is to be kept holy to God, but can we be sure which day that is? At this date Jews keep the Sabbath as the last day in the week, that is our Saturday, and Christians keep it as the first day of the week, Sunday. Also as the earth rotates different nations have different times, and different days  depending on which side of an arbitrary line they are. It has been suggested that if, for example, a very devout and genuine group of Christians years ago suffered shipwreck and landed on a desert island, and in the process lost record of the days, they might sincerely keep what they believed to be Sunday Sabbath, but on rescue, years later, find that they were a day out, and had been worshipping on Mondays, rather than Sundays. Would they be guilty of Sabbath-breaking? Clearly not. One day in seven had been dedicated, and sincerely kept. As in so many other things we must make a distinction between the core of a matter and correct administration. The Sabbath was kept in an incorrect manner but this was unintentional and due to lack of correct information. We may say the same for example concerning the Lord’s Supper or Baptism. Many keep these sincerely, but in an irregular and incorrect format, and this is due to lack of true information and correct Biblical teaching. This is far different from knowingly and deliberately breaking any of these commandments.
Assuming, then, that it is important to keep the Sabbath on the true and correct day, so far as we are able, we return to the question: which day is the Sabbath now. Firstly, we need to look over the history of the Sabbath, as revealed in the Scriptures. We have noted that the Sabbath was a Creation ordinance. God rested after the six-days progressive creation, on the next day. That this pattern, and thus the requirement of Sabbath keeping was clearly understood and practiced from the very earliest patriarchal ages. Adam and Eve’s two sons, Cain and Abel brought offerings to God in process of time (King James Bible) but more literally at the end of days, which can only mean at the end of the weekly cycle (Genesis 4:3). Noah in the Ark waited for God’s sign that the flood waters had abated over two periods of seven days (Genesis 7:11, 12). It can thus be taken as a given that a weekly Sabbath was kept throughout the patriarchal period, and by the descendants pf Abraham, and probably only slowly lost by the outspreading and apostate tribes and nations. What we do not know is just which day of our modern week this creation and patriarchal Sabbath fell. Israel went down into Egypt, and became enslaved there, and it is unlikely that they were able to observe the Sabbath for many generations. God, however, had not forgotten either his people or his Sabbath, and on the Exodus we have the renewed command: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.  Unlike all of the other commandments God added more explicit details: Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.  (Exodus 20: 8-11). Here the origin and necessity of the Sabbath and its sanctification are reiterated and re-established, and we note that Sabbath keeping is obligatory even for non-Israelite strangers within the community, but still which day was then the seventh in the sequence alludes us. God reinstated the Sabbath by a practical example in the giving of the manna to eat in the wilderness: Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, in it there shall be none, See the LORD hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye everyman in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. (Exodus 16:, 26, 29, King James Version.) Note that this was before the formalisation as one of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20.
The Jews, from that day forward were careful to keep the Sabbath, on what they have always regarded as the seventh day, that is Saturday on our reckoning, through to the coming of Christ and the destruction of their nation and polity, and so on down to the Judaism of our own days.
Next, it is undeniable that Jesus Christ made the next day after the Jewish Sabbath a special holy day, thus replacing and fulfilling the then-existing Jewish Saturday Sabbath. Christ rose from the dead: In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre (Matthew 28:1), When the sabbath was past…very early the first day of the week, they came to the sepulchre at the rising of the sun (Mark 16:2), Jesus was risen early in first day of the week (Mark 16:9), Upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre (Luke 24:1), The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre (John 20:1). Christ appeared to his disciples repeatedly before his ascension on the first day of the week (Sunday) commencing with the very say of his resurrection: The same day at evening. Being the first day of the week…came Jesus and stood in the midst  (John 20:19).  A week later: After eight days (that is ,reckoning in Jewish fashion inclusively, that is both Sundays included)  again his disciples were within…then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst (John 20:26). The change of day was certainly understood by the disciples after Christ’s departure and the giving of the Holy Spirit: Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread… (Acts 20:7), Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him, that there be no gathering when I come (1. Corinthians 16:2). It should be noted that these references to the first day (Sunday) as the worship meeting day occur quite incidentally, introducing something else, quite as if the Sunday Sabbath was a given, unquestioned and accepted by all.
Here we might leave the question, on the basis that God in Christ has settled the current Sabbath as a fulfilment of the earlier Jewish one, and that there is no question that Sunday is the Sabbath now. But there is quite possibly something more. The analogy of faith, the flow and development of the entire Bible and its unfolding and deepening revelation gives a pattern by which the Jewish economy, from Abraham to Christ the Messiah, was exclusive (to keep pure the line by which Messiah would come), but also preparatory for that event. It was thus necessary that many things in the Jewish economy should be, not abolished, (and not continue alongside) but be continued in a new, fulfilled, fashion, thereafter. Seen in this light the entire Jewish dispensation was in preparation for what was to come, and so, to emphasise this point, the Jewish Sabbath would have to be preparatory also. We have seen that the original, or Creation Sabbath was lost in the Egyptian captivity, and that, on the Exodus, the Jews were given a Sabbath day to celebrate, but with the emphasis now on their Exodus, rather than the original Creation: Remember that thou was a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence though a mighty hand    and by a stretched our arm, therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day  (Deuteronomy 5:15). This would appear to put a distinction between the original Sabbath and the Jewish Sabbath, much as there had to be a clear and unambiguous separation between the Jews and all other peoples. The Creation Sabbath had been world-wide, and later, as now, the Christian Sabbath is worldwide. All this suggests very clearly, without needing to be expressly stated, that the Creation Sabbath and the Christian Sabbath are one and the same, that is what is now Sunday, and that the Jewish Saturday Sabbath was an interlude, teaching clearly the necessary preparatory and introductory phase that was the Jewish polity, until the advent of the Messiah and the global spread of the gospel. It is thus therefore wrong in very way to think or teach that the current Jewish Saturday Sabbath is in any way legitimate or God-pleasing, because in essence that must deny the coming of Christ the Messiah, and his fulfilling all aspects of the law- including the Sabbath.

                                              UNDERSTANDING  SUNG WORSHIP.

       Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness! Come before his presence with singing. Psalm 100 (Metrical.)
Praise is sacrifice.
     Covenant  Christian Churches sing only the Psalms in worship. This is because we believe that God is totally sovereign, not least concerning his own due worship, and that the Bible he gave us lacks nothing, and so contains the material that he gave us to praise him with, and that this, and this alone, is what Christ has specifically mandated for his true church!
There are many fine and detailed explanations of this Biblical position available, but here we will offer a short summary of the importance of Psalms alone in worship to God. As in many other areas we should note that great truths run like threads through the Bible, but we begin with one specific ‘proof text’ that is (or should be) unanswerable, and that the modern professing church has ignored to its immense loss and cost. This is what God the Holy Spirit stated on the subject in Hebrews 2: 11-12, it should be considered most carefully:
     Both he who sanctifies (Jesus Christ) and those who are sanctified (the true church) are all of one, for which cause he (Jesus Christ) is not ashamed to call them (the church) brethren, saying: (Jesus Christ saying) I will declare your name (the Godhead’s name) to my brethren (the true church), in the midst of the church I (Christ Jesus) WILL SING PRAISE TO YOU. (Christ Jesus sings praise to the Godhead.) It should be carefully noted that the Apostle quotes Psalm 22:22, showing that the pre-incarnation Christ worshipped the Tri-Une Godhead along ith his chosen people, the on-going church, in all ages.
Here these texts Holy Spirit tells us specifically that Christ Jesus is invisibly present when the true church gathers, and for more than that, that Christ invisibly sings praise to the Godhead, along with his people on earth.
Can Christ, God the Son, offer to God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and Himself, God the Son, a sacrifice of praise that is IMPERFECT? Absolutely not! Would men ask the all-perfect God the Son to praise the all-perfect Triune God in words penned by sinful and fallen men? Totally unthinkeable!
God himself has provided the sacrifice, the God-inspired Book of Psalms right in the middle of the Bible. Even on earth Christ repeatedly sang inspired Psalms (e.g. the hallel  Psalms at the last Passover when the Lord’s Supper was instituted) and even quoted Psalms on the cross. Those who have a perfect sacrifice available (as all professing Christians do right in their Bibles) and prefer to offer man-made worship should also note this text: Cursed shall be that deceiver who has a male in his flock and yet vows and sacrifices a corrupt thing to the LORD  (Malachi 1:14).
If there is any blemish in it…you shall not sacrifice it to the LORD your God. (Deuteronomy 15:21).
These are serious matters.
Would anyone say that these are all Old Testament quotes? Let us continue in the New Testament:
And has made us kings and priests to God his Father Revelation 1:6.
and have made us kings and priests to our God Revelation 5:10.
they shall be priests of God and of Christ  Revelation 20:6.
We note the word priests in all these three quotes describing the saved elect ones. The Greek word  is defined as one who offers sacrifice. We do not believe in a continuing sacrificing priesthood, yet note that here all true believers are deliberately given the title that belonged to sacrificing priests!
We know that all ancient sacrifice was typological, pointing to the one great sacrifice of Christ Jesus on the cross for his people, after which there remains no more sacrifice for sins (Hebrews 10:6).
Why then must believers still make sacrifice, and (in light of the one completed for ever sacrifice) what can that continuing sacrifice be?
Turn to Hebrews 13:15 and we are told specifically: Let us then offer the sacrifice of praise to God by him continually, that is giving thanks to his name by the fruit of our lips  So Christians are required to offer to God Almighty (continually) sacrifices, but those sacrifices are to be of praise. Put this chain of Scripture together and we arrive at this conclusion: an unbreakable thus says the LORD’
Believers must sacrifice praise to God (frequently/continually) as his spiritual priests.
Sung praise is that sacrifice.
God mandates that only perfect sacrifices can be accepted as he is all-holy.
The only perfect sacrifice is the one provided by God himself.
God has given us a Book of acceptable praise sacrifice in his Bible.
When this is employed it is an acceptable sacrifice, and the invisible Christ fellowships with his church in offering praise along with them.
To give ANYTHING ELSE God declares to be an ABOMINATION in his sight.
Christ in the Psalms.
     The often repeated claim that we cannot sing the Psalms alone but need hymns because there is not enough of Christ in the Psalms is mistaken in the extreme. Not only will a study of the Psalms show Christ the Messiah throughout, with full predictions and description of Christ’s divinity and humanity, ministry, atonement, resurrection and ascension, not only did Christ himself love and employ the Psalms to teach about himself, not only did Christ love to sing the Psalms in worship of his Father (so that there is nothing lacking but the New Testament personal name Jesus), but there is another point that is also decisive- no one should dare to say that there is not enough of Christ in the Psalms, because to do so is to contradict Christ himself! The Lord expressly states that: all things must be fulfilled which stand written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, AND IN THE PSALMS, concerning me  (Luke 24:44). Christ placed himself in the Psalms, and admonishes his people to seek and find him there. How dare any professing Christian deny or ignore the Lord?
We can know nothing about salvation without the Bible, and we can never understand or teach Christ’s saving work unless it is as laid down in the Bible, for Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures (1. Corinthians 15:3). If then we wish to sing praises to God in thankfulness for that salvation, then (to be true and acceptable) that praise must also be according to the Scriptures. Human songs are not Scripture. The Psalms are. Therefore we can only worship in Christ’s name by employing Scriptural praise. The saved are thus required by God to sing the Psalms alone, if they wish to celebrate Christ and salvation.
The conclusion must infallibly be that the modern church, by abandoning exclusive Psalmody, and employing man-made songs of any kind has denied God  his worship, never sacrifices due praise to his glory, and has separated themselves from Christ,  who can no longer worship with them. A professing church that separates itself from Christ in worship distances itself from him in other ways as well. A wedge is driven, and God’s invisible presence in Christ is no longer understood or experienced. The result is apparent all around us in the West: the professing church withers, and becomes ever more desperate- and ever more man-centred. This must be understood and reversed, in the church is to flourish again. There can, in God’s sight and with the Bible in hand, be NO case for anything but the Psalms in sung worship. This is a vitally important matter: nothing less that God’s honour and the loving sacrifice of praise that is his due is at stake. It is a matter of willing obedience.

                                                                UNDERSTANDING BAPTISM.
     One subject has divided the church more than any other over recent centuries is that of baptism. It is vital that this be reconsidered in the light of Scripture and history, for the modern church has deviated greatly from the original God-mandated pattern, and at the same time seen a massive turning away from the faith in the Western nations where the modern theory has been most accepted. We must test the man-made norm to seek God’s own teaching and authority, if the faith is to receive his blessing and approval. This mandates a study of, and then obedient acceptance of, the original Apostolic, method, and acknowledgement that the church has flourished best when this has been most understood (the Reformers, the Puritans.)
HISTORY.
      One important factor that must be clearly recognised if we are to understand true Biblical baptism lies in the fact that we must necessarily consider this subject at a distance of 2,000 years from the culture of its Jewish New Testament beginnings, and we are naturally saturated with a history, language, and society that is far removed from that original setting. We mostly do not have the presuppositions, based on Jewish Biblical culture, that were the unquestioned norms originally. A result of this has been that words and phrases that were once taken for granted and almost casually employed in everyday parlance in their original setting have become the subject of prolonged linguistic study, and as a result hardened into dictionary and lexicon definitions. This mandates a specific book definition, which may well be far more limited and inflexible than the original usage, to a level that would have sorely puzzled the original first-century users of the word.
BAPTIZO-BAPTISM.
     A classic example of this culture shift is the Hellenistic Greek term baptizo, coming down to us as baptism.  As the word by itself tells us nothing (being Greek in English dress) we must necessarily step back in time and culture and understand that baptizo, unlike its more specific root bapto was a flexible and wide-ranging term, very useful for that very reason. It also, as we shall see, happened to fit a Christian need, as the New Testament church was formed. As the modern church is not Greek speaking the word had become naturalised into English, and as it is now used only in the Church vocabulary, all the other uses to this wide-ranging term are forgotten, even though they give the parameters by which we should understand the true meaning of the word.
     There are thousands of examples of the use of baptizo in Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman period Greek literature. It is plain that it was a very useful, because flexible, term. What is also plain is that its usefulness lay in its describing, not any action or method, but always a result. A definition cannot come any closer than something like this: the application of something (usually a liquid) to an object, resulting in a change in that object.
     The changing application is baptism and the object thus changed is baptised. Probably the most frequent use of the term came from the practice of dying cloth to colour it. In that case the cloth may be wholly or partially soaked or dipped into and out of liquid dye. If so the process of dipping and subsequently removing is bapto and the change produced as a result is the cloth’s baptism: its baptizo. This is important to grasp because, coming into its Christian context, bapto (mode) is NEVER employed, but baptizo (result) ALWAYS is. In other words in the New Testament the word describes the change or result of the procedure, and has no reference at all to the mode of application. That must be looked for elsewhere, within the analogy of Scripture, as we shall see.
Those who insist that baptizo means to immerse (against all original intent and usage) should note that when bapto (dipping) is the process by which a baptizo (change) is brought about there is no mechanism in the term to un-bapto the subject!  If Christian baptism was a true bapto (the only word that means to dip) the person must stay under water. That certainly would result in a baptizo- a change in status: in plain English, in a drowning!
In Greek the liquid applied may be dye, may be milk, may be blood, may be water. The quantity is not the important point, the result or change of status is, although the quantity is typically limited. A wounded bird flying over a lake drips blood, and the lake is baptised. So also a wounded frog in the fable of the battle of the frogs and mice. He skips away hurt and so baptises the pond. A mother breast feeds her infant, and baptises it with her milk. A ship is sunk in a storm, and so is baptized in the sea. Cloth is dyed and baptized. Just as the liquid varies so the quantity is flexible. Drips of blood from a small creature do not immerse a pond or lake, and a mother does not submerge her baby in milk. Dying may or may not involve submersion. A sunken ship is indeed immersed- but the term cannot bring it to the surface again. There is only one common denominator in the use of baptizo across this wide range: a change is produced. That change is the baptism. A pure lake or pond is changed into a blood-stained one. A hungry baby is changed into a fed one. A plain piece of cloth is changed into a coloured or patterned one. A ship is changed into a sunken wreck. A very frequent use of baptizo in Classical Greek refers to intoxication: the drunkard is not immersed in drink but changed, from being sober to being intoxicated.  On occasion baptizo is completely dry: there are references to being baptised in debt, that is changed from being solvent to being a debtor.
In the very context in which the New Testament was penned- that of the Roman Empire-Greek was the most widely employed language, understood by even educated Latin speakers. Interestingly the Romans took over and employed this Greek word, finding it useful for their needs, and their usage again shows conclusively how baptizo was understood and taken for granted in those days. Most people know that the Romans built elaborate public bathing establishments (Thermae), with various hot and cold baths, steam rooms, cold plunge baths, and so on. Various rooms had their titles: Apodyterium (cloakroom), Frigidarium (cold plunge), Tepidarium (gently warmed room), Caldarium (hot room), Sudatorium (sweating room), Palaestrium (games and exercise room.) But what was not wanted was for customers to bring in the dust or mud of the streets into the bath waters. Hence on arrival each customer was expected to begin their visit by washing (cleanings) their feet. Shallow basins of water were provided for this purpose. This room within the Bath complex was called the Baptisterium. Here is this most useful Greek word naturalised into Latin. The quantity of water is small, but the term describes the important change produced, from dirty feet to clean ones suitable to enter the main baths.
With this original use in mind it is obvious that when the Greek-writing new Christians needed a term to describe the rite by which a person becomes a member of the visible church community, is changed from a worldly person to a confessing Christian, in Jewish terms and thinking is ritually cleansed, the ideal term was at hand. Baptizo, the change resulting from application of a liquid, described exactly what was needed. Water was applied, and the result was a ritual cleansing, by which the person was changed from being unclean to being clean, and a member of the sanctified community.
Baptizo then describes the result of the cleansing, and says nothing directly of the mode of cleansing, although its context always indicates a limited application of liquid to produce long term effects. The Apostles and early Christians were Jews, and what we call Christianity is the completion and fulfilment of the Jewish Old Testament. That Testament is full of details of ritual cleansings. If something radically new was to be introduced an explanation would have been given. None is. The mode then has to be the ancient and continuing one, and the resulting cleansing can be conveniently described in Greek as baptizo- in English a baptism. How were Jewish religious cleansings performed?
OLD TESTAMENT PURIFICATIONS.
      And a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and lay them up in a clean place beyond the camp, and it shall be kept for a water of separation for the congregation of the children of Israel, it is a purification for sin. Whoever touches the dead body of any man who dies and does not purify himself, defiles the tabernacle of the LORD. That soul shall be cut off from Israel because the water of separation was not sprinkled on him. And whoever touches one that was slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean for seven days. For an unclean person they shall take some of the ashes of the heifer burnt for purification of sin, and running water shall be put to it in a vessel and a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the vessels and on the persons who are there, and on those who touched a bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave, and the clean person shall sprinkle the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day and on the seventh day he shall purify him, and wash his clothes, and bathe him with water, and he shall be clean at evening. But the man who shall be unclean and shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from among the congregation, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the LORD. The water of separation has not been sprinkled on him, and he remains unclean. (Numbers 9:9,13-14,16-19-20).
All Jewish religious cleansings were performed by sprinkling: sprinkling of water, blood, or the ashes of the red heifer. The latter two were typological of the sacrifice and shed blood of Christ, and so are fulfilled. The cleansing, establishing or restoring a holy status remains. And that cleansing must be, by divine appointment, by water sprinkling in order to be genuine.
THE PHARISEES.
     So embedded was the thought that ritual purifications came by sprinkling (and that baptizo baptizw was the appropriate Greek word) that by New Testament times the Pharisees had added many such extra-Biblical ritual purifications by their rigid traditions: And when they come from the market they will not eat until they have washed (baptisontai), and there are many other things that they have chosen to observe such as the washing (baptismouv) of cups, and pots, bronze vessels, and of couches. Putting aside the commandment of God, you hold the traditions of men, such as your washing (baptismouv) of pots and cups, and many other similar things you do. (Mark 7:4,8). Of course the washing of tables or couches, and so the smaller items, could not have been by any submersion: it was a ritual cleansing. Although in error this practice again proves the true correct usage of the term- sprinkling on of water to ritually purify- when the New Testament was written.
JOHN THE BAPTIST.
     More truly Scriptural was the baptism of John in the wilderness, and thus the mode of baptism undergone by Christ himself. What must be clearly understood and kept in mind is that John was the son of a priest named Zachariah, of the ministerial course of Abijah, that is John was of the priestly line, a hereditary Jewish priest. His calling people to repentance, and cleaning them (baptising them) would not have been tolerated had he not have been of the priestly line (both in his father’s and mother’s ancestry- Elizabeth being descended from Aaron, Luke 1:5.) John would have been trained for the priesthood, with the anticipation of his one day taking over his father’s role in the priestly course of Abijah. Hebrews 9:10 describes these as consisting in meat and drink and various purifications and bodily ceremonies, which were required of them until the time of reformation. Various purifications is literally various washings or baptisms: διαφοροις βαπτισμοις.  John, a birthright priest, could only purify/baptise according to the regulations laid down in the Pentateuch. Anything else would not have been legitimate, and would not have been tolerated by the Temple authorities. The only legitimate baptisms John could perform, the only mode that as a priest he would legitimately apply is the regular sprinkling mandated in the Law. John could not have baptised legally- or being permitted to baptise at all- had he baptised anyone in any other way.
CHRIST’S BAPTISM.
     Having shown that in Bible terms baptism is a ritual purification, enabling the candidate to take their place in the covenant community, we come to a point that is essential to grasp in order to see the true meaning and purpose of baptism- indeed one that is most important in understanding genuine Christianity at all.  Why was Christ baptised by John? Christ was absolutely sinless. He needed no purification. This was clearly understood by John: John would have prevented him, saying: I need to be baptised by you, and yet you come to me? Jesus answering said to him: Permit it to be so now, for this is how it is necessary to fulfil all righteousness (Matthew 3:15). How could Christ fulfil all righteousness by being baptised/cleansed? His own righteousness was perfect and complete. This righteousness can only be the righteousness of his people, the church, those granted to him by the Father. Thus Christ, who was sinless, was baptised vicariously, in the place of and on behalf of his people. This is so important that it is crucial to the whole Christian faith, if that faith is to be genuine. Our baptism is valid only through our spiritual, covenantal, union with Christ. His was thus the only true baptism, and ours is validated by union with him in it. He who needed no cleansing underwent a vicarious cleansing, in order that we might be cleansed by his cleansing. Any other ‘baptism’ that lacks this vital element is pointless and meaningless: a mere human show. But, as we have seen, Jewish ritual cleaning  had to be by sprinkling, and Christ, baptised by a Jewish  priest (John) can only have been sprinkled. Without union with Christ in the mode of Jewish baptism there can be no inner or spiritual union. Understanding Christ’s role in vicarious cleansing in order that his people and their seed might be cleansed and set apart in grace, rules out anything except the original Jewish mode. In Bible terms, nothing else is, or can possibly be, real Baptism.
THE REAL EFFICIENCY OF BAPTISM.
     What then, happens to the candidate at baptism, be they a covenant infant or an older convert from the world? This is also very important to understand, for there are both outward and inner realities involved. Baptism is not a ritual nor a witness, nor does it operate at a merely visible, human, level. God is actively involved on behalf of his elect. Outwardly the one baptised is made ritually clean and thus enters into the covenant community, the church. The church accepts the person, and engages to nurture that new member, be he or she a newly born covenant child, or a more mature convert from the world. Inwardly baptism seals spiritual union with Christ in his vicarious baptism-cleansing for his people. This union involves an actual inner reception of grace, granted and applied to aid the candidate in their spiritual walk, future battles with sin, and progress in sanctification. In other words in the sacraments (baptism and the Lord’s Supper) God is really there, and really active, and both are real channels of grace to the elect one. This Biblical teaching was largely recovered at the Reformation, especially by Calvin, but has been swept aside by the humanism and individualism of the more modern Western church. When the sacraments become essentially something that we do (rather than what God does for us) we fail to discern Christ in them, the Spirit withdraws, no benefit is received, people cut themselves of from (or even deny) the supply of grace- and churches wither. This must be (Scripturally) reversed if genuine original, God involved, Christianity is to recover. Baptism is important, but it must be understood that it is not so vital to salvation that none can be saved who, for whatever reason, have been prevented from baptism (for example the thief on the cross, Luke 23:39-43.)
BAPTISM FOR THE DEAD.
    This Biblical understanding of the true significance of baptism makes one of the most misunderstood texts in the New Testament as clear as daylight. Great controversy has been generated around 1. Corinthians 15:29, in the King James Version: Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise nor at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead The entire difficulty has been caused by the modern cultural assumption that ‘baptism’ must mean the restricted use of the term as taken over to describe the sacrament of admission to the visible Church community- Christian baptism. So culture bound is Western Christianity that we fail to note the Biblically obvious: that the New Testament was penned by Jews with the whole Old Testament economy behind them, and that the basic employment of the Greek term was to describe all purifications, of which the water purification that signifies addition to the church was originally just one (although it is now the enduring one, the previous Jewish typological purifications being fulfilled in Christ.)
With this Bible background we are on firm ground, because to touch the dead was to incur ritual uncleanness, requiring purification (thus requiring a baptism). Whoever touches one that was slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean for seven days…and the clean person shall sprinkle the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day and on the seventh day he shall purify him, and wash his clothes, and bathe him with water, and he shall be clean at evening  (Numbers 19:16,19). So contact with a corpse brought ritual uncleanness, which was removed by sprinkling the unclean, and as we have seen that cleansing was a baptism. So Paul is telling those brought up in the Jewish law that there was little point in a) incurring ritual uncleanness in attending the dead, and then, b) undergoing a ritual cleaning, if the dead were never to rise again. In the context it is plainly the wider ritual-cleansing use of baptism that is being discussed, and limiting it to the modern narrower Church use is deceptive and wrong.  If there is any lingering doubt concerning this we need only refer to the Apocryphal Jewish book of Sirach, penned in the inter-testamental period in the Koine Greek that we have in the New Testament. The writer considers a parallel situation to that discussed by Paul, equally based on the law requirements of Numbers. He asks: ‘He who washes himself after touching a dead body, if he touches it again, what good was his purification/washing?’ (Sirach 34:25). Here is Jewish employment of Greek, and the specific use of ‘baptism’ for the original reads: ‘He who BAPTIZO  ….what good is his LOUTRON ? Here is baptism on account of the dead, requiring a ceremonial cleansing by washing/loutron (pouring, sprinkling) and the effect of this is a baptism, a change in status by that application of water from unclean to clean. Sirach asks what good is all that if the person undoes it by touching the corpse again? Paul says what good is it if the dead will never rise again?
The context and background of 1. Corinthians 15:29 mandates a corrected translation to prevent misunderstanding, as: ‘Or else what shall they do which are cleansed for the dead, if the dead never rise at all? Why are they then cleansed for the dead? (Ideally with a note that cleansed here is literally baptised.)
CHRISTIAN BAPTISM IS SIMPLE AND EASY.
     Carefully readers of the New Testament, who approach the text with open and enquiring minds (rather than taking presuppositions to the text), will note that all baptisms recorded there are non-elaborate, simple, speedily and easily performed actions. There is never any preparation, no provision of changes of clothing, no filled and later emptied tanks, no processions to riversides, absolutely nothing but a credible profession, followed immediately by an application of water, and that clearly not sufficient to cause any inconvenience. Take as a prime example the record of the baptism of the great apostle Paul. Paul was struck blind on the road to Damascus, and led by the hand into that city. Over three days he neither ate nor drank, and so must have been in a weak physical state. Ananias entered the house, and cured Paul’s blindness. Note this: he received sight at once and stood up to be baptised  (Acts 9:18). Had there been any preparation or elaboration Paul would surely, as an act of mercy, have been fed and given drink, before he approached his baptism! But he simply stood up, and there he was baptised standing upright on his feet. This can only have been a simple cleansing sprinkling.
Next let us consider the case of Philip and the Ethiopian treasurer, in Acts 8 26-40.  This court official of Queen Candace has been reading the Book of Isaiah. The place he has reached, when Philip was drawn to him, was Isaiah 53:7-8, describing Christ the suffering servant. But just before he would have read Isaiah 52:14-15: His visage is marred more than that of any man, and his form more than the sons of men. And so he shall sprinkle many nations.  He accepts Christ as Saviour, desires baptism on this profession, and at once, with no other preparation or ceremony, is granted it. There are springs of water (that still exist) by the roadside. But note: having read of Christ’s SPRINKLING many nations, this man from another nation at once asks for BAPTISM. How could that be, if it was not understood that baptism was sprinkling (purification) and nothing else? The treasurer and Philip both stepped into the shallow water, water was raised and sprinkled- and the baptism was completed. As simple as that. Another example is that of  the Philippian Jailor (Acts 16:19-40). Paul and Silas had been illegally arrested and thrown into the inner dungeon. As they praised God an earthquake shook the prison, and the Jailor, assuming that the prisoners had escaped, prepared to kill himself. Paul dissuaded him, and instead preached Christ as Saviour to him and his family. Note what is recorded next; He took them the same hour of the night and washed their lacerations and he and all belonging to him were immediately baptised (Acts 16:33). Immediately baptised. No prepartions, no equipment needed. There was water present, the bowl of water in which he has washed their wounds. The supposition must be that this bowl was once used to sprinkle the family, because on the washing of wounds they were immediately baptised, then and there, in the inner prison, before he even took them to the greater comfort of his own quarters (v. 34). No-one left the prison until Paul and Silas were released (with apologies) the next day (vs. 35-40). We also have the case of Lydia, the seller of purple dye, also at Philippi. (Acts 16;13-15) She has been attending a Jewish place of prayer (Proseuche) at the river-side on the Sabbath day. Paul preached Christ to her and she was converted, and she and her household (family) were at once baptised. Lydia had a house in the city. Had there been and ritual or preparation she would surely have gone home first to prepare, and almost certainly invited the apostles there also. No such thing happened. She and her family were baptised at once, without going home. There is no way in which she (and them) could have walked home in dripping, soaking wet, clothing. Clearly water from the river was raised and sprinkled- and the baptism was done. Only after this did she invite the apostles to her home (v. 15).
Other examples might be cited, of the constant pattern of immediate, short, simple, non-ritualistic, non-elaborate cleansings on profession of faith, with an accepted profession including the new-believers dependent children (if there were any). It is illuminating, in this context, to note how the great apostle Paul, in the midst of this pressured life, was not sure if he has actually baptised anyone except the household (family) of Stephanas (1. Corinthians 16:15). This surely suggests that baptism, for Paul, was a constant, on-going, given in the churches, simple and easy and not at all exaggerated out of due place or proportion.
Does this simplicity mean that baptism is, after all, not important? Not at all! It is simply that the vital importance of baptism has been misunderstood and misapplied, and transferred from a spiritual and invisible to the visible and the ritual. There is a deep and important spiritual reason why baptism in the church has this simplicity. It is short and easy on earth because far greater things accompany it in the spiritual realm beyond our sight! The dynamic, the emphasis, is on what GOD does in and for his elect, and not at all on what PEOPLE (the believer or the church) does. The power of both sacraments flows from heaven, from the sovereign electing God. Saved humans are the recipients, not at all the originators of sacramental grace.
The less attuned men in the churches are to the reality of the spiritual realm, the more the emphasis shifts into a desire for the tangible, the visible, even the spectacular. The more elaborate the ritual becomes, the more man-centred it becomes. This paradigm shift from awareness of the spiritual to satisfaction with visible show is a movement away from God and the word into humanism. It has done immeasurable harm to the professing church. May we see Scriptural awareness and reformation, before the Lord returns.
CONCLUSION.
      In the whole unnecessarily controverted subject of baptism we are faced with a clash of modern, Western, philosophical cultural assumptions on the one hand, against the original Jewish based religion of the Bible on the other. The modern theory emphasises man, who is always the active party. It also concentrates on what the individual is doing (witnessing to his or her faith). The Bible teaching points to God, and what he does for his people. It is also covenantal, seeing the person as part of a wider body, the church, by virtue of union with the church’s head, Christ.
In the Biblical context the modern Western theory of adults only and immersion is not only undreamed of, but is a complete impossibility. It is a basically humanistic construct imposed on the Bible in comparatively recent history. It would hold back God himself from his working in and for his elect people.
The vital question for us today is: to be genuine, which should our faith and practice be based on?
      For these reasons, in unity with the apostolic church and the most Scriptural churches since, Reformation Christian Churches baptise adult converts from the world, and the covenant infants of existing believers, by sprinkling as the true and only genuine mode of Christian baptism.

                                     UNDERSTANDING MODERN JEWS AND THE CHURCH.
     For a correct understanding of the true Bible religion- Christianity- it is vital to understand the connection and interface between the Jews and Judaism, and the Church and Christianity. By reading the New Testament from the standpoint of modern (that is post-Reformation) European-based (or descended) culture a mistaken or distorted impression is almost universally made, that has been fostered and developed into a norm by false modern dispensational teaching, concerning the interface between the so-called ‘Jewish’ Old Testament and Christian New Testament eras. It is emphasised (correctly) that in much of the Old Testament salvation was of the Jews, that is, a  person had to be united with the people of Israel to be in a saving relationship with Jehovah (actually by faith in the predicted and coming seed of the woman- the Messiah). In fact this in itself is a distortion, as for in the entire Old Testament period from the Creation to Abraham, the knowledge of God was not so restricted, but was widespread in the ante-diluvian world, and later spread widely among the dispersing sons of Noah. Israel as a unique covenant nation really began with and after the Exodus, with the settlement in Canaan, and the division of the land amongst the tribes of Israel. Fundamental to that arrangement, first as a theocracy and later as a monarchy (united, and later divided), was that territorial division and allocation to the various tribes. Tribal loyalty, and tribal jealousies, was a feature for much of the subsequent Old Testament, but it is an error, an historical inaccuracy, to attribute this rigid tribal system right down through history to the coming of Christ. Long before that period many, and later the large majority, of Jews in Palestine could not truly state which tribe they belonged to- and in fact a large minority, possibly even a substantial majority, in fact were not genetically descended from any of the twelve sons of Jacob at all. The fact (that is so largely ignored) is that Jewish identity did not lie in genetic descent, but was a religious and not a racial separation from the surrounding gentile world. Those united by faith to Jehovah, and (males) receiving circumcision, became truly Jews, and within a generation or two were indistinguishable from tribal-descended Jews. Notable examples are Rahab, Ruth, the Gibeonites, Arauna, the Cherethites and Pelethites and others, but these specific cases are indicative of a wide-spread immigration into Palestine, with voluntary acceptance of the Jewish religion, followed by complete assimilation. The result, long before New Testament times, was a large percentage of Jews who were descended from none of the original tribes, making tribal distinctions less and less relevant in the actual society. In fact modern knowledge, both from archaeology and literature studies, shows that first-century Palestine was a far more cosmopolitan society (especially from the reign of the pro-Roman and Greek culture king Herod) than those who have the New Testament alone might guess.  It is thus totally untrue (historically) to say, as some do today, that in the Older Testament salvation was restricted to the generic sons of Israel, because it was limited to geographical Palestine (plus the Diaspora).
By New Testament times we find that the Apostles of Christ were mainly Galileans, and no mention is made of tribal affiliation. It is very notable in the New Testament, that only two groups still made anything of pure descent from one or other of the tribes of Israel: a) those with a claim to royal descent (as Mary and Joseph, to prove Christ’s royal descent), and, b) on the other hand the Pharisees, who prided themselves on being the ultra-orthodox of that day, the holiest of all Jews, and who looked down with contempt on the mass of the common people. Part of the Pharisaic purity was certainly their claim to pure descent from a known tribal line, and conversely their contempt for the ordinary people included the fact that these did not have a claim to descent from any of the original twelve tribes. The Apostle Paul was raised a Pharisee and so claimed thus to be one of the superior pure, real, Jews: a Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin (Philippians 3: 5), and so could have out-Phariseed the Pharisees, but clearly he came to regard these distinctions as meaningless, for now all are one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:27). The New Testament does, on occasion, still refer to the twelve tribes (for example in the Book of Revelation) but clearly this was a way of indicating all of Israel. Thus the idea of a racial Israel, all descended from the twelve tribes, existing at the time of Christ’s ministry is a myth. Genetically the people had become greatly mixed, and (Pharisaic claims apart) had no claim to specific tribal ancestry- and scant interest in the concept. They were united as Jews- by the religion they professed, not by any blood-line.
Given these historical facts it is plain that modern claims and ideas and teaching of a massive dispensational shift and upheaval when Christianity emerged from its Jewish background are hugely exaggerated and un-historic. There was nothing monumental in the change: the groundwork had already been laid. Gentiles had flowed into Judaism seeking the true God. Now a fulfilled Judaism flowed out into the Gentile lands, with the saving message of God. The chasm between the Old and New Testaments is a myth: one flows seamlessly into the other, with more continuities than changes. Given the cosmopolitan Palestinian society within the intergrated Roman Empire the barriers were already down, the Lord’s way had been made smooth.
The attempt to make a chasm between the two integrated parts, apart from violating history, is a heresy aiming at separating the older phase from the newer, in order to make a new and gentile religion from the New Testament alone. This is dispensationalism: a hot-house growth devoid of the faith’s true historic unfolding. As the faith passed into majority- and in latter centuries almost exclusive- gentile hands, we must consider: what is the current, and beyond that the future, relationship of the Jews to the Church?
Firstly it must be made clear that, (despite what many sincerely believe and advocate today), the Bible does not teach a future national or general conversion of all or most Jews by race. That is a massive side-track, taking selected Bible language far too literally and ignoring the wider intention and context. The Bible is quite clear that not all of Israel (Jews by race) were or are  Israel (elect), but only those of the faith of Abraham were and are his true seed, and that since the ministry of Christ the spiritual Israel now includes elect from all races. The elect among racial Jews in the Old Testament were the great root that bears the tree of the church, the spiritual Israel of God, elect from all races now. So much is quite plain in the Bible. There can be no special status or dealing with unconverted Jews en-masse, because the unconverted are the unconverted, and are never included within God’s gracious special dealings.
Are the Jews then not important to the church, and are they to be seen as an undistinguished part of reprobate humanity, to be evangelised as are all others around the world? Certainly not! The answer is that they are vitally important to the church, and for that reason must be evangelised. Indeed they must be specially evangelised. Converted Jews are necessary to restore the church to its genuine, Jewish-based balance, and redress the secular, man-centred, humanism, the overall gentilism that has all but destroyed the professing church in the West today. Converted Jews also bring great knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures and New Testament culture to the church. Rather than needing to be taught the basics of Old Testament history (as do those from other cultures) they add to our knowledge, even as they themselves see the Old Testament truths and history unfold in glorious new light in and through Christ the Messiah.
What is more, on Bible evidence, we may expect a large increase in such Jewish conversions in the near future, as God’s sovereign decree of election moves back towards them from the gentile dominated- and finally compromised, distorted, and failing- church, as the fullness of the gentiles is completed, and so all Israel shall be saved. This cannot mean all the Jews, as that would refute the truth of sovereign election, but certainly all elect Jews, whose numbers must be intended to be increased, to be spoken of in that way. In other words the decree of election has largely run amongst the gentiles, whilst being very scanty amongst the Jews for almost two thousand years. The day shall soon come when God sovereignly says that the fulness of the gentiles mandates that the decree be reversed to focus on the Jews once again, and greatly increased numbers will be called and converted. Further, this shall occur when the gentile churches have spiritually declined and turned aside so far from their original Biblical basis as to be in many ways dead in God’s sight. This is exactly the situation we face in the West today.
     Modern false dispensationalist teaching has, tragically, distorted and ignored what was long understood as the real miracle concerning the Jews: their continued existence over centuries and now millennia as a separate and distinct people. Living in almost every nation on earth, drinking the waters of the Thames, the Mississippi, the Ganges, the Volga, they have remained (and been preserved) as a unique people. This can be said of no other people from antiquity. Who now can say that they are the seed and descendants of the Sumerians, the Assyrians, or even the Classical Romans? In Britain who can say and know what part of their ancestry comes from the Celts, the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings, or the Normans? All have been subject to mixing and amalgamation. Not so the Jews, who have remained a distinct people in a totally unique way. Until recently this fact was marvelled at and regarded as a standing miracle, and a proof of the reality of the Bible religion. The Bible is clear that, although the Jewish polity had apostasised almost totally by the time that the Jews rejected the Messiah and so was judicially ended in 70 A.D. God has not finished with the people who had been chosen to keep uncontaminated the line in which Messiah Christ was to be born. This is the (so misunderstood) purpose of the Jewish diaspora. It is God’s will and sovereign plan that Jews should a) be scattered worldwide, and b) kept separate and unique in all nations.
As we have seen true religion passed, after 70 A.D. into increasingly majority gentile hands. What the Western and gentile churches should have kept constantly in mind was that they were the heirs of the previous (Jewish) faithful, that their religion was (and is) the completion and fulfilment of the previous Jewish phase: that they are braches engrafted onto the Jewish root, that Christ Jesus was their Messiah-Saviour, and Abraham was the father of the faithful in all ages. Basically: there was nothing new to be added, because there was nothing lacking. All Christians were to be spiritual Jews, in a completed phase of the unfolding religion, carrying on, now with no rational distinctions, the same religion, as: There is now neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:27). But, inevitably, this purity would not last. We have seen how the Jewish phase of the faith finally lost its pureness, lost its spirituality, turned more and more aside and ended in apostasy. The Bible clearly teaches that the same would finally also be the case with the gentile majority phase of the church. And THAT is what we see all around us today. Even those who claim (and actually believe themselves) to be the truly Bible-believing and evangelical and born-again Christians have been subject to two-thousand years of gentile distortions of the deposit handed into their keeping by God on his judgment of the previous Jewish polity. Philosophy (that Greek passion) has constantly re-interpreted the Bible message, and the faith has been subject, a bit at a time, to a process of evolution, until finally today it hardly resembles what it was originally. The corporate, covenantal, structure of the faith has been supplanted by Western individualism. Children of the saints are excluded from their covenantal standing and pushed without the community until they are adults, fallen men and women write their own worship songs and offer them to God and expect God to accept them as the sacrifice of praise to the exclusion of the inspired songs God himself provided for that purpose, even salvation itself is taught as being man’s own choice and decision, and philosophical-theological theories divide up the Bible and set asunder what God has joined together as one unfolding revelation. All is man, man, man. Even in circles that attempt (sincerely) to be as Biblically sound as they can, (and despite periodical attempts at revival and reformation) what we now see all around us as Christianity is, at core, a new religion, re-worked in a gentile image. This is not to say that there is no salvation in it: God has, and calls his elect, and we rejoice to see true spiritual conversions, but we must remember that there were elect and faithful Jews, spiritually looking in faith to the Messiah, at the end of the Jewish polity, and yet overall that polity was finally apostate, was judged unfaithful, and passed away in favour of the next (gentile) phase. Looking all around us now we cannot fail to see the apostasy, the same prevailing unfaithfulness, the same perverting into a man-centred religion, in professing Christianity today. And the result is necessarily the same: the Spirit largely departs, churches decline and become desperate: and society at large side-lines the faith and prides itself on arriving at a ‘post-Christian’ humanistic era!  Again we stop and say: What says the Bible? It is this (and it is VERY important:I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, of this mystery in case you should become wise in your won conceits. Blindness has happened in part to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. (Romans 11: 25).
This says that the day would come when the gentile churches would fail just as the Jewish one did, but that this is NOT THE END. A final phase then succeeds. When this fullness of the gentiles in completed that perpetual miracle of the separate and distinct survival of the Jews reveals its divine purpose. The diaspora (God’s intention for the Jews throughout the gentile ascendency in the Church) are, according to Paul, to be granted a huge increase in the elect amongst them, and these new converts are to bring life back to the almost dying gentile churches, in all nations across the globe. What is more their input will purify the churches, and put them back on the true Jewish descended, globally fulfilled, six-six Book Bible basis. On this basis a history of the plan of redemption goes like this:
1. The Patriarchal phase, when knowledge of God was known to all as the descended from Adam. This phase ended in rebellion and apostasy (requiring the judgment of the Deluge), although it included many saints.
2. The Jewish phase, when religion was restricted to that one race, in order to ensure the line of the Messiah. This phase ended in rebellion and apostasy (including the crucifying of the Messiah), although it had included many saints.
3. The Gentile phase, when the fulfilled and completed religion was to be proclaimed without restriction across the world. This phase ends in rebellion and apostasy (with secular humanism claiming the victory), although it had included many saints.
4. The calling and conversion of large numbers of diaspora Jews, leading to the revitalising and restoration to Biblical purity of the existing churches. This phase to continue worldwide until all the elect are gathered in, and the Lord returns.
This understanding is a vital part of the testimony and witness that Covenant Christian Vision was developed for, advocates, and points to. God will surely bring it to pass in his own good time.
WHAT OF THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL?
     It will have occurred to the reader by this time that this understanding of the relationship of the Jews to the church must also address the modern situation of the political state of Israel. It is not the purpose of the church to enter into geo-political issues, but the existence of the modern national sovereign state of Israel (often the focus of international tension), and especially the fact that national Israel figures so largely in the theological schemes of large sections of the professing evangelical church, that is those who adhere to any form of dispensationalist teaching, renders some mention necessary.  It is clear that Israel, as a sovereign nation state, has every right to exist, and has every right to defend its sovereignty and existence from all terrorist and other aggression, and is deserving of support when faced with such aggression. But this is, of course, the right of every nation state in the world to freedom, liberty, and self-determination. It is a solely worldly, political, matter.
Turning to the Scriptures, and theological systems claiming to be derived from the Bible, it must be stressed that the present national entity of Israel simply is not in any way a fulfilment of New Testament Bible prophecy (a concept that the Orthodox Jewish government of that nation would indeed reject outright.) In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and into the first half of the twentieth century there were Reformed theologians and writers who sincerely believed that the Bible taught a future en-masse return of ethnic Jews to the ‘Holy Land’ and looked forward to it eagerly. However, looking back at this school of interpretation, it is plain that: a) that there was first to be a mass conversion of Jews to Bible Christianity, followed by, 2) a mass removal of converted, Christian, Jews by race to Palestine. These schemes typically were a foundation for pre-millenial teaching, with the return of Christ to reign in Jerusalem, primarily over the converted Christian-Jewish restored Israel, and secondarily over a subdued earth- for a thousand years. Needless to say this is far from a Reformed understanding of eschatology, and, more to the point, is far from the present reality of the national, Jewish, state of Israel established in 1948, in which the Orthodox system is still awaiting the advent to their Messiah. Israel is notoriously one of the most difficult nations on earth for Christian missionary work, facing organised and hostile anti-missionary action, Converted Israeli Jews (though highly lauded in the West) are mostly far from being one hundred percent Christians but conflate Jewish practice and culture with the Bible, often keeping the (preparatory) sixth-day Jewish (Saturday) Sabbath, circumcising male infants and observing the (fulfilled in Christ) Jewish feasts. These ‘Messianic Jews’ of various stripes are, in fact (and sadly) approximately on a level with the Ebionites of old, that is 50% Jewish, 50% Christian. All this is far, vary far, from the old pre-millenarian belief in a thoroughly converted Jewry restored as Christians, to Abraham’s land.
If the interface of the Jews and the church presented above is indeed God’s plan, than instead we might expect a world-wide expansion of election among Jews across the globe, as the gentile majority churches falter and fail, and their true conversion pumping new life and revived truth into those churches across the globe. That then explains the whole divine purpose of the Jewish diaspora, of the Jews scattered in all nations, but kept miraculously from amalgamation into those nations. That is, their re-grafting in to their won roots, the roots that bear the finally wilting, but revivable gentile churches, and so all Israel spiritual, within which there will be neither Jew nor Greek racial, shall be saved, and the way prepared for the Saviour’s return.
And there is, finally, another intriguing possibility to consider. As Jews have concentrated especially in the national state of Israel, such a mass re-engrafting, such large scaled genuine conversions, might well produce a surplus of intelligent, competent, Bible Christian potential teachers in that nation. If so- what could be more appropriate than that many might go out as a missionary force, first to aid in the organisation of churches of converted diaspora Jews, then in the reforming and revival of gentile churches, and finally in the amalgamation of all into the one true final church? And after all that: to the Jew first, is simply a restoration of the original Apostolic pattern.

                                                          UNDERSTANDING THE ELDERSHIP..
It is usual, in Presbyterian polity, to divide the Eldership into two sections, by duties and functions, but not by rank, into Teaching and Ruling Elders. In the nineteenth-century battles were waged in Presbyterian denominations to preserve the co-equal rank of Ruling Elders as true Presbyters, ordained by the laying on of hands, and essential components of every level of Presbytery. However, anomalies still remain. As the history developed it has been assumed and accepted that the division between Teaching and Ruling Elders mandates that: a) the Teaching Elders is (wherever possible) a full-time salaried professional, whilst the Ruling Elder is a part-time church officer, typically with a secular calling (or retired from one) who thus is not salaried. In this way the double honour of 1. Timothy 5:17 (Let the elders who oversee well be counted worthy of double honour, especially those who labour in the word and in doctrine) is regarded as referring to a salary rather than an unpaid service.  In fact this simple assumption cannot be justified from Scripture.
If the Ruling Elder does not preach this is not because he should not do so, but rather that this is not his regular calling or trained speciality. The Epistle talks only of two classes of officers: Elders and Deacons, and thus links Teaching and Ruling Elders together. Without distinction it is said that he must be qualified (or able) to teach (1. Timothy 3:2). In other words the Ruling Elder must be able to preach, when it is necessary and required. That is, in cases of sudden illness or unavoidable absence (or possibly longer pastoral vacancy) the Ruling Elder must be able to lead services and preach to edification, even if it is in a simpler manner than that of the trained Teaching Elder. Thus it is not that the Ruling Elders should not be in the pulpit, but rather that he will not be there unless it is necessary.
There is nothing in the Bible that mandates that the Ruling Elder should not be a full-time paid Elder, supported financially by the church. It is simply that most churches have struggled financially to support their Teaching Elder (Pastor), who, as we have seen, takes first place for the double honour. But if a Church is wealthy enough to do so, there is no scriptural bar to one or more Ruling Elders being full-time salaried Elders (or having a part-time salary to supplement a part-time secular employment) so as to free their time for Eldership ministry. There is much for the Ruling Elder to do, from pastoral visiting to Sabbath School organisation and teaching, relief work, routine administration tasks, attending Presbytery meetings, and generally assisting the Teaching Elder (Pastor) and relieving him of unnecessary burdens to concentrate on the word and doctrine. In other words the more time available to Ruling Elders, the better for the church. If it is necessary for the church to pay to obtain their time, and this is affordable, there is no Scriptural reason not to arrange this. As it is the divide between full time salaried Elders and part time unpaid Elders has engendered the false idea of the Ruling Eldership being a lesser role, and thus a false and misleading concept of a clergy-laity divide. This must be avoided at all costs. Both classes of Elders are Presbyters, both are ordained (so both are clergy if any is). It is simply that the Teaching Elder (Pastor), by virtue of his calling and training, and as the normal spokesman of the word, directs the teaching and doctrine, and ‘moderates’ the meetings, and so is a permanent leader and chairman in the Church Session.