Church Identifed in OT by Paul ! - Yesterday, 08:40 AM
If God ever gives us to understand the scriptures, we will be able to see that the NT Church of Christ and the OT Saints are of the same, the Church of Christ ! Paul in writing to the Church at Rome in the 8th chapter writes
Rom 8:33-39
33Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.
34Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
35Who shall separate us from
the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 37Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Notice Paul asks in vs 35 " Who shall separate us from the Love of Christ"
So Christ's Love is the subject ! Then he refers back to scripture that has been written to connect it with the Love of CHRIST ! vs 36
The scripture Paul is referring to is here
Ps 44:22
22Yea, for thy sake
are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
Now who are the we of this verse ? vs 17
17All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely
in thy covenant.
18Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way;
It is the remnant of the Election of Grace in Israel that had an eye to the Covenant concerning Christ ! That Covenant confirmed before in Christ
Gal 3:16-17
16Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.
17And this I say,
that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.
The covenant that the saints around at the birth of Christ recognized as here
Lk 1:67-73
67And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying,
68Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people,
69And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David;
70As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began:
71That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us;
72To perform the mercy promised to our fathers,
and to remember his holy covenant;
73The oath which he sware
to our father Abraham,
Our Father Abraham is not meaning the Father of the unbelieving reprobated ethnic jews, for Christ knew Abraham was not their Father in that sense from His words to some of them here
Jn 8:39
They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them,
If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham.
So that is not what is meant, but Abraham as the Father of the Faithful as here
Rom 4:16
Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also
which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,
That's who Zacharias , John's Father meant when he said " the oath which He [God] sware to our Father Abraham in vs 73
So this Promise belongs to the Church, which was the Promise of Christ, who is the Head of His Body the Church, and if we belong to Christ, then are we Abraham's Seed that the promises pertain to
Gal 3:29
And
if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
The same promise Zacharias means in
Lk 1:72
72To perform the mercy
promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant;
This connects as well the OT saints with the NT Saints the Church, for they were all Heirs of the Same Promise Christ, the Head of the Church.. This promise was made to the Saints, or the Church since the world began
Lk 1:70
70As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been
since the world began:
So technically that is how Long the Church has been in existence , since the world began !