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@sonship saidDevilment? You are fabricating doctrines not found in the Bible. So far we have the following truths:
Paul points to the formation of Eve the WIFE of Adam in his explanation about Christ and the church.And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place.
And Jehovah BUILT the rib, which He had taken from the man, into a woman and brought her to the man. (Genesis 2:21,23 ...[text shortened]... s mystery is great, but I speak with regard to Christ and the church" (Eph. 5: 31b-32)[/b]
1. Paul stating clearly that the church is the body of Christ
2. An angel in Revelation saying that the bride is the New Jerusalem
3. John saying that he is a friend of the groom, and not the bride.
4. Jesus himself referring to his followers / church as His brothers, sisters, etc. never his bride.
5. Paul referring to the Holy city New Jerusalem as the MOTHER. Jesus is likened to the FATHER. The church cannot possibly be the bride.
The evidence is overwhelming. All of your doctrine is meaningless assumptions, hearsay and fabrications.
As for your claim that the church is BOTH the body and the bride of Christ, that is just more unadulterated nonsense from people like Witness Lee who lack understanding.
I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. (Revelation 22:16-17 KJV)
Jesus AND the bride is calling to the church [his body]
Is the bride calling herself?
The three are separate and distinct
- Jesus
- The bride - New Jerusalem or the Kingdom of God
- The church
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Devilment? You are fabricating doctrines not found in the Bible.
The New Testament -
Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her. (Eph. 5:25)
As Christian husband to a wife is, so is Christ to His church.
He gave up His life indeed for individual sinners like me.
But in reality it was for a corporate collective called the EKKLESIA - "the church" that He loved, He gave Himself up for.
Why did He give up His life for this corporate group of humans beings? Just to forgive them? Just to assure their obedience to His commandments? He died and rose to marry this collective presenting this collective to Himself without any offending or foreign element contrary to His holy nature.
The He might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of the water in the word, that He might present the church to Himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such things, but that she should be holy and without blemish. (vs.26,27)
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Throughout the apostle Paul's explanation it keeps calling this group as "HER" or "SHE" in order to hold the analogy of this group as a FEMALE counterpart to her Savior Christ. This is completely consistent with Paul's opening word - Christian husbands and wives actually point to the more profound reality of Christ and His church.
[quote Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is head of the wife as also Christ is Head of the church, being Himself the Savior of the Body. (v.22,23) [/quote]
The peculiar rebellious blindness of Rajk999 is to argue that because one relation ship of Christ to the church exists another one does not. He is so artificially biased and narrow in his view that Christ having a relationship to the church as His Body somehow negates the teaching that Christ is also the Husband to the church.
He has barely room only for one aspect of Paul's teaching. Thinking he is standing on the truth he is actually using one half to suppress the other. He uses one angle to deny that another angle is not there.
Do no learn how to read the Bible from this kind of lopsided, biased blindness. It is so pernicious that I called it "devilment".
Christ having the church as His Body and being "the Saviour of the Body" gives this heretic no excuse to arrogantly announce that Christ marrying His bride and wife the church is something fabricated.
But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives to their husbands in everything. (v.24)
Husbands to wives - points us to - Christ and His church.
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@sonship saidI just love how you refer to anyone not agreeing with your nonsense as rebellious, as if you are the appointed interpreter of the bible sent by God. You are just a hopelessly deluded man, a dunce in my opinion, loaded with false doctrines and lies, blinded by devotion to the teachings of men, on your way to the lake of fire. Your thread trying to explain to people about good works and righteousness, was an abject failure. If you had the tiniest drop of the teachings of Christ in your heart you would be able to explain to people the teachings of Jesus. The truth about you is that you are an empty shell, lost and without hope, one of the goats destined tor destruction.Devilment? You are fabricating doctrines not found in the Bible.
The New Testament -Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her. (Eph. 5:25)
As Christian husband to a wife is, so is Christ to His church.
He gave up His life indeed for individual sinners like me.
But in reality it wa ...[text shortened]... nkle or any such things, but that she should be holy and without blemish. (vs.26,27) [/quote]
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Rajk999, enumerates his points thinking to establish his lopsided twisting away of the truth:
1. Paul stating clearly that the church is the body of Christ
Because Paul states this Rajk999 assumes Paul cannot state other aspects of the relationship between Christ and the church.
Just as clearly Paul states that Christ will present a glorious church to Himself as His wife:
" ... Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of the water in the word, that He might present the church to Himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such things but that she should be holy and without blemish. SO ... the husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies.
The repetition of "she" and "her" underscores the Male / Female - Husband / Wife analogy. To the Christian human marriage must remind us of a far deeper and more eternal reality - Christ died to obtain a Wife for Himself which is a very part of Himself - the church. He is her Savior. He is also her Husband.
He who loves his own wife loves himself."
Rajk999 thinks if one teaching exists, the other does not. This is a darkened human mind imposing its limitations on the pure word of God. He attempts to restrict it to what HE wants to teach. He wants to use one part of the Bible as a weapon against another part.
Paul did not say "Husbands love yourselves, your own bodies" directly. He said "Husbands love your WIVES even as Christ also loved the church"
Paul did not say "Husbands love your own physical bodies and Christ loves His own mystical body".
Though he says something like this, his WAY of saying it exalts the truth that the church is the wife and romantic counterpart to Christ.
Two simultaneous truths are presented in Paul's teaching -
1.) the church has a relationship to Christ as His own body.
2.) the church has a relationship to Christ as His own wife.
It is not EITHER / OR as Rajk999's blindness twists away at.
It is that both aspects of the whole revelation are valid.
So the husbands ought also to love their own wives AS THEIR OWN BODIES. He who loves his own wife loves himself; For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ also the church; Because we are members of His Body. (vs.28,29)
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Two truths are too much for Rajk999 to hold. He must try to suppress one down out of existence in order to hold the other.
1.) The church has a relationship to Christ as His own Body indwelt with His own life.
2.) The church has also a relationship to Christ as His counterpart, His bride to be, to have been wrought upon by His nourishing and cherishing to become like Him in every way to MATCH Him - thrilling His love, vindicating His devotion and uniting with Him for eternity.
A lopsided man here thinks he is faithfully standing on the Bible's teaching. He is not. He is using one angle of view to claim that another angle of view is fabricated, not true.
What twisted blindness!
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Rajk999's biased lopsided using of one part of the Bible to fight against the other continues:
2. An angel in Revelation saying that the bride is the New Jerusalem
The New Testament says the believers, Christian believers HAVE COME to the heavenly Jerusalem in the present church age.
"But you have come ..."
You is the believing audience of followers of Jesus. And we have come to WHAT ??
"But you have come ... to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, ... and to the church of the firstborn ones"
We will look at the whole verse in a moment. FOR NOW grasp that the believers in Jesus Christ HAVE COME already to something with at least three aspects:
1.) "the city of the living God"
2.) "the heavenly Jerusalem"
3.) "the church of the firstborn ones".
Part of our being (if we are regenerated, born of God, born from above) is already in New Jerusalem the city of the living God which is to be the Wife of the Lamb, His counterpart.
Now let's look at all the passage:
But you have come forward to
Mount Zion and to the city of the living God,
the heavenly Jerusalem;
and to myriads of angels, to the universal gathering;
And to the church of the firstborn, who have been enrolled in the heavens;
and to God, the Judge of all;
and to the spirits of righteous men who have been made perfect;
And to Jesus, the Mediator of a new covenant;
and to the blood of sprinkling, which speaks something better than that of Abel." (Hebrews 12:22-24)
Notice this is not "You WILL come someday to".
But it is "But you HAVE COME forward to ..."
IF you are a constituent of the church universal, you have come at least in part of your being, to New Jerusalem, the city of the living God. This is the city John saw come down out of heaven from God to MARRY her husband Christ.
@sonship saidDirect clear statements from the bible beat your BS long-winded explanations anyday. Here they are again
Rajk999's biased lopsided using of one part of the Bible to fight against the other continues:
2. An angel in Revelation saying that the bride is the New Jerusalem
The New Testament says the believers, Christian believers HAVE COME to the heavenly Jerusalem in the present church age."But you have come ..."
You is the believin ...[text shortened]... living God. This is the city John saw come down out of heaven from God to MARRY her husband Christ.
1. Paul stating clearly that the church is the body of Christ [not the bridt]
2. An angel in Revelation saying that the bride is the New Jerusalem [not the church]
3. John saying that he is a friend of the groom, and not the bride.
4. Jesus himself referring to his followers / church as His brothers, sisters, etc. never his bride.
5. Paul referring to the Holy city New Jerusalem as the MOTHER. Jesus is likened to the FATHER. The church cannot possibly be the bride.
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@Rajk999
First three points have already been addressed.
4. Jesus himself referring to his followers / church as His brothers, sisters, etc. never his bride.
Stupid.
Constituents of Christ's salvation may be referred to in more than ONE aspect:
servants - as regards to service.
virgins - as regards to love.
brothers and sisters of Christ - as regards to unity for His Father's will.
members - as regards to functioning parts of His mystical body.
branches abiding in the true vine - in regards to sharing in His life.
children of the mother Jerusalem - in terms of the new covenant.
habitation of God - in terms of built together with His Spirit
sheep of the Shepherd - in terms of following Him.
bride of the Lamb - in terms of mutual happiness - for one day.
wife of the Lamb - in in terms of mutual happiness forever and ever.
Rajk8999, has done NOTHING so brilliant by affirming that some OTHER relationship to Christ CANCELS OUT another relationship.
In phony pretentious "expertise" he's just making a fool of himself.
Ie. " They are children of the Mother above Jerusalem, SO they cannot be also the Wife New Jerusalem"
This is as dumb as arguing "Jesus as the Son of Man means He is not Jesus as the Son of God. He can only be one or the other."
5. Paul referring to the Holy city New Jerusalem as the MOTHER. Jesus is likened to the FATHER. The church cannot possibly be the bride.
He is using Galatians 4:26 to suppress Rev. 21:2,9,10.
Because in speaking comparing the old covenant with the new covenant Paul uses one allegory of Hagar and her child compared to Sarah and her child, the Jerusalem above cannot also be the collective marriage partner of Christ.
Throughout the entire time Rajk999 has posted on this Forum he uses a portion of the Bible to put down another portion of the Bible.
His logic is that because Jerusalem above in Galatians 4 Paul teaches is the mother of the new covenant saints, then Jerusalem coming down out of heaven in Revelation 21,22 cannot be the Bride and Wife composed of the same saints.
There is only room in his puny mind for barely one teaching which he uses as a weapon to fight against the other.
@sonship saidSo, in one post we have stupid, phony, fool, dumb and puny.
@Rajk999
First three points have already been addressed.4. Jesus himself referring to his followers / church as His brothers, sisters, etc. never his bride.
Stupid.
Constituents of Christ's salvation may be referred to in more than ONE aspect:
servants - as regards to service.
virgins - as regards to love.
[b] brothers a ...[text shortened]... room in his puny mind for barely one teaching which he uses as a weapon to fight against the other.
'But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.'
Matthew 5:22
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@sonship saidYour list [minus the last two] are all in the bible
@Rajk999
First three points have already been addressed.4. Jesus himself referring to his followers / church as His brothers, sisters, etc. never his bride.
Stupid.
Constituents of Christ's salvation may be referred to in more than ONE aspect:
servants - as regards to service.
virgins - as regards to love.
[b] brothers a ...[text shortened]... room in his puny mind for barely one teaching which he uses as a weapon to fight against the other.
servants - as regards to service.
virgins - as regards to love.
brothers and sisters of Christ - as regards to unity for His Father's will.
members - as regards to functioning parts of His mystical body.
branches abiding in the true vine - in regards to sharing in His life.
children of the mother Jerusalem - in terms of the new covenant.
habitation of God - in terms of built together with His Spirit
sheep of the Shepherd - in terms of following Him.
Plus
- friends of Christ
- disciples of Christ
These two are unbiblical. These are your fabrications.
bride of the Lamb - in terms of mutual happiness - for one day.
wife of the Lamb - in in terms of mutual happiness forever and ever.
Nowhere does the bible refer to church or followers as the bride or wife.
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bride of the Lamb - in terms of mutual happiness - for one day.
wife of the Lamb - in in terms of mutual happiness forever and ever.
Maybe you've never been married.
One day to the Lord is like 1,000 years.
The Bride is bride usually one day.
The same bride then settles in for the long life of a wife.
I think every lame objection you raised has been refuted.
@sonship saidNot one single reference in support of your claim.bride of the Lamb - in terms of mutual happiness - for one day.
wife of the Lamb - in in terms of mutual happiness forever and ever.
Maybe you've never been married.
One day to the Lord is like 1,000 years.
The Bride is bride usually one day.
The same bride then settles in for the long life of a wife.
I think every lame objection you raised has been refuted.
And you call your hearsay, assumptions and ole talk, refuted.