159 - Les Feldick Bible Study Lesson 1 - Part 3 - Book 14 - New Heaven and Earth

https://lesfeldickbiblestudy.com Through the Bible with Les Feldick LESSON 1 * PART * BOOK 14 SALVATION: HELL VERSUS LAKE OF FIRE: NEW HEAVEN AND EARTH Revelation 20 The wedding will be between Christ the Lamb and the Body of Christ "the Church" Paul (especially since he writes concerning the Church), makes so much of Christ and His Body which is the Church. Romans 7:4 As soon as we become a child of God, and we become a member of the Body of Christ through faith in the Gospel, we are already connected to Christ. Ephesians is where Paul gets into some of the deeper aspects of our position in Christ. The Book of Ephesians is not a simple Book. The Body is unique to this Age of Grace. Here in Ephesians, Paul is writing in regard to the human husband and wife. Ephesians 5:21,22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord." Ephesians 5:23a "For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church:..." I have always asked my classes if there is anything uncomfortable or miserable about being in the Body of Christ with Christ as the Head? The husband should live totally to the benefit of his wife. When God created that first human couple; never throughout all of human history did God command the wife to love the husband. Ephesians 5:25 "Husbands, love your wives (that's a commandment. If God mandated from creation that the husband was to love the wife, but doesn't tell the wife to love the husband, what do we know He put into the woman? That if the man will love the wife, God has put within the female of the species that ability to respond. Ephesians 5:23b "...even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body." That is the Body of Christ. Let's come back I Corinthians Chapter 12 for a moment. Here Paul makes such a beautiful description of this Body of Christ. Jesus never referred to a group of believers as His Body. Never! That is strictly a Pauline doctrine - that we are members of the Body of Christ. "For as the body (human body) is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ." "For by one Spirit (capitalized, so it's the Holy Spirit) are we (not just the most spiritual, or the ones who are most holy, but) all (that includes every believer and they have been)baptized (by the Holy Spirit) into one body (the Body of Christ),..." Immediately, the Holy Spirit places us into the Body of Christ. This whole wide congregation of genuinely born-again people, become part and parcel of this Body. So as we are baptized into this Body by an invisible, unfeeling, act of God, it is something that we take by faith. "For the body (the physical) is not one member but many." "If the foot shall say, `Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body;' is it therefore not of the body?" No one in the Body of Christ can say, "I'm of no use." And no one in the Body of Christ can say, "I'm at the top of the heap." In other words every believer is in a place that God puts them. Now back to Ephesians Chapter 5, the whole function of the Body is to respond to the Head. Which is Christ! Use your own physical body as an example. It's the same way with the Body of Christ. Ephesians 5:25-27 "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;" Husbands should be willing to die for their wives. The Word of God! To glorify God and enjoy Him forever. The Lord is filling up the Body of Christ, and we feel that it is getting awfully close to the midnight hour. When the last one will be brought into the Body, and then the Body will be complete. Here in Colossians Chapter 1 are beautiful verses, but let's jump in at verse 13: Colossians 1:13,14 Remember our last lesson on Salvation? Paul then say in verse 15. Colossians 1:15 God is what? Invisible. The Spirit God. The Triune God. Colossians 1:16 "For by him (The Son) were all things created (remember in Genesis we found that God the Son did the creating. Colossians 1:17-19 It's the Body of Christ. There is another verse along that same line in Ephesians Chapter 1: Ephesians 1:22,23 "And hath put all things under his (The Son's) feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, Which is his body (the Church and His body are used in unison over and over), the fullness of him that filleth all in all (or the Church is the complement of the Son)." Genesis 2:18 So as Eve was the complement that completed Adam in that relationship, so the Body of Christ is that complement for which Christ is still waiting and looking for. And when that Body is full, He will bring it unto Himself. Revelation 19:7,8 Verse 14. Revelation 19:14 Members of the Body, but also citizens of the Kingdom. #LesFeldick #BibleStudy #Bible