Lessons

The Hope of the Church of the One Body – Part 7. The close relationship we have with Christ that was established before the foundation of the world. The three scriptural references (John 17:22-24, 1 Peter 1:18-20, Ephesians 1:3-4) that pertain to before the foundation of the world involve two that establishes the love that God had with his Son, Jesus Christ, the third talks about us! What an amazing relationship we have with God. Every calling has a hope and every hope has a promise and every promise has a unique relationship with the Lord and his glory. The calling always determines the hope that the believer has. Most of Christianity today thinks that Christ only has one return or advent which is here on the earth. But when the common thinking today involves the rapture, tribulation, and millennial reign that should happen in that order, it appears this would involve at least two advents of the Lord. There is some fault with this thinking. The first advent would be when they meet Him in the air (rapture) which is discussed in the Acts period, and the second would be when he comes back to the earth to set up his kingdom which is discussed in the Gospels and in Revelation (this is the Lords “Parousia”). Christianity doesn’t recognize the third advent of Christ which is the “Epiphany” where he appears in glory and we appear there with Him (that is the hope of the church of the one body). When it comes down to it, the calling and hope that we have in the Church of the One Body, is what Paul is explaining in Philippians 3:11 and Colossians 3:4 which involves the “out-resurrection”. This is not the same as the resurrection that was expressed called the “rapture” which is Jewish. The lesson on September 30, 2007 continues the audio series on the Hope of the Church with part 7.