Gospels and Raptures (Christ - Part 19): Participants

The Gospels and their Raptures (Christ - Part 19)

Participants

Since the covenant that God made with Abraham in Gen.12:1-3, God's focus and attention has been upon the physical seed of Abraham, the Jews. The reason for this is due to the plan of God for the redemption of humanity at that time. God's covenant with Abraham was that all of humanity would be blessed through the nation of Israel,

Gen.12:2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

Yet, on the other side of the transition, the Gentiles are in the focus of God, and the Jews are like Loammi, Hosea's second son, who was given the prophetic name to signify that the Lord was rejecting the people of Israel in their sinful and unbelieving state.

Hos1:9 Then said God, Call his name Loammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.

To further emphasis this in Paul's writings, we read in the following,

Rom.11:15 For if the casting away of them [Israel] be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?

and,

Eph.2:12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: 13 But now in Christ Jesus ye [Gentiles] who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

Although this switch from Jew to Gentile was always in God's greater plan of redemption, the catalyst, to get from the one agency to the other, was the work of Paul under the inspiration of Christ and by the revelation of the gospel of Christ.

We have already discussed how Paul went into the synagogues, and at this time, it had a mix of Jews, but also Greeks who believed in Israel's God. Paul preached the gospel of God, the resurrection of Christ, and to those who believed in this message, he persuaded them to meet in homes so that he could present them with the gospel of Christ. These who believed in this new message became the first members of a small and growing 'Body of Christ'.

We do read that some Jews believed, but on the other hand, many Jews would not receive this message and rather continued under the gospel of God. As for the Gentiles, they gladly received this message as it was less restrictive than the gospel of God with its Jewish customs, diet, laws and traditions. The gospel of Christ was liberating. It was not bound by Jewish customs and laws, barring those that the Gentiles had to keep according to agreement to maintain peace in the church due to conflicting practices, Acts 15:28-31. 

At this point in the transition we should understand that the participants in the growing church called, the Body of Christ, was a good and fairly even mix of both Jewish and Gentile attendees. Why? Because Paul was still focusing on Jews first, and then the Greek! Paul still had hope for the Jews that they could be saved. It was only when we come to the end of his ministry that he turned entirely to the Gentiles and the writing in his epistles were addressed to the 'far hence' Gentiles. This we will pick up again however in the 'Grace' part of this study. As for the gospel of Christ, we have a mix of both Jew and Greek, both saved into the Body of Christ, but focus was still on Jew first,

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

Part 20 will continue with the 'destination' of the Gospel of Christ.