THE POPULAR ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLE PROPHECY

CHURCH IN PROPHECY

THE CHURCH WAS COMPLETELY NEW

The apostle Paul describes the Church as a body composed of both Jews and Gentiles. He teaches that Christ broke “down the middle wall of separation,”alluding to the wall in the Jewish Temple that separated the Jews from the area open to Gentiles ( Ephesians 2:11-18 ). Paul terms this a “mystery” ( Ephesians 3:3-4 ). A mystery, in the biblical sense of the word, in somethings that was once concealed but later reveal. That was God’s plan for the Church. This mystery of the age was “that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the Gospel” ( Ephesians 3:6 ). The Church was planned by God, predicted by Christ during His earthly ministry, and initiated by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

THE CHURCH AND APOSTASY, FALSE TEACHING, AND IMMORALITY

The New Testament includes several prophecies about the church in general or about a local church in particular. Paul, in his address to the Ephesians elders, said, “For I known this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among your selves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves” ( Acts 20:29-30 ). Paul exhorted these elders to “watch” because of the impending danger ( Acts 20:31 ). Likewise, the apostles Peter made a similar prediction about the churches he addressed in 2 Peter. Peter warned his readers that “there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them” ( 2 Peter 2:1 ). He also indicated that ” many will follow their destructive ways” and that the predicted false teachers “will exploit you with deceptive words” ( 2 Peter 2:3 ). Jude, writing a few years after Peter but with a message the was parallel to Peter’s, noted that “certain men have crept in unnoticed… ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ”( Jude 4 ). The New Testament repeatedly affirms that the church will always face the threats of apostasy, false teaching, and immoral conduct. This seems to borne out in Jesus’ own evaluation of the very Church that Paul founded and warned in Acts 20. In His apocalypse, Jesus rebuked the Ephesian believers, saying, “You have left your first love” ( Revelation 2:4 ). To the Thyatiran believers Jesus said, “You allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols” ( Revelation 2:20 ). That was precisely what peter predicted when he wrote to those same churches of Asia in 2 Peter.

THE RAPTURE OF THE CHURCH

Paul’s exhortation for husbands to love their wives is rooted in this lofty comparison: “just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word” ( Ephesians 5:25- 26 ). Paul notes that Christ’s purpose in that redemptive and cleansing process is “that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish”( Ephesians 5:27 ). Paul also predicts just when that presentation will occur. The rapture will take place ” at the last trump” ( 1 Corinthians 15:57 ), at the same time that “the Lord Himself will descent from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God” (1 Thessalonians 4:16 ). ( For the timing of these trumpets with Matthew 24:31, see James A. Borland, “The Meaning and Identification of God’s Eschatological Trumpets” in looking into the Future: Evangelical studies in Eschatology ). This great prophecy about the Church continues, “And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the The Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 ). At that time the entire church will be presented to Christ perfect and without blemish. Paul explains, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior , the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it maybe conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself” ( Philippians 3:20 – 21 ). The apostle John adds that “we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” ( 1 John 3:2 ). When we are made like Christ through that beatific vision, He will fulfill His presentation of the church to Himself “without spot or wrinkle. ” The Church will be made perfect at that point.