Thus far, in an attempt to see if the Bible answers the question of “when?” we have looked at Acts 2.14-21 and 1 Corinthians 13.8-13. In this post, I want to take a quick look at a few other verses, some of which have been hit on several times already in the series (hence the shorter amount of time spent on them).
Internal Evidence – When?
Ephesians 2.20
The first such verse is Ephesians 2.20. I will quote here verses 19-21:
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
Paul here is talking about the reconciliation of both Jew and Gentile through the work of Christ on the cross. Our focus today will be on the phrase “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets” which has been discussed previously. Two questions arise here, 1)what is the foundation? and 2) what is built on the foundation.
First we look at the foundation. The text says that the foundation is of the apostles and prophets which is universally agreed to as being their doctrine and teachings. Regardless as whether one takes prophets in this sense to be the Old Testament prophets, New Testament prophets, or both, we know that the teaching of all three (OT, NT, and apostles) was a united teaching on the Gospel. So whatever is being built is being built on the Gospel of Christ, His death, burial, and resurrection.
What is being built then, is probably obvious. It is the Church, catholic in the sense of universality; The elect throughout all time, Jew and Gentile. Christ says that He will build His church upon the same confession that Peter gave (Matthew 16.13-20), which was that Jesus was the Christ. The church will be built upon the foundation of the confession of Jesus as Christ who is the cornerstone which holds the building together.
Once the foundation is established, it must be built upon, not continued. If the foundation is continually built, there will be no actual structure. Thus, if the roles of apostle and prophet are connected to the foundation through their teachings, their offices are no longer necessary. Along with their offices are the signs, miracles, and wonders that were tied into the authentication of their message, which were also foundational. The foundation is built and preserved by us in Scripture through the teaching of the apostles and prophets. As I stated in part IV, may we dedicate ourselves to the apostle’s teaching (Acts 2.42) as preserved through Scripture!
Hebrews 2.1-4
The next verse is another verse that I’ve hit on previously, very briefly, but it is also one that ties into Ephesians 2.20. Hebrews 2:1-4:
Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
Here the author of Hebrews gives a clue to the foundational quality of certain gifts. First, we see that this “great salvation” was declared first by The Lord. By this, the author means the fullness of the Gospel was preached by Jesus. We know that the Gospel, in some form or another was spoken of throughout the Old Testament such as in the protoevangelion (first mention of the gospel. Genesis 3.15), but the author means to say the fullest and clearest revelation of the Gospel. Then it was attested to us by those that heard. The author here asserts himself with the second generation of Christians, those Christians who heard the Gospel from the Apostles, or “those that heard.” The phrase “those that heard” almost definitely refers back to the Apostles who were with Christ and heard His teachings directly, and whom were also directly charged with the taking of the Gospel from Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the Earth. It is important to note here that the author mentions signs and wonders in the past tense, and links it to the preaching of the Apostles. As has been argued in this series the revelatory and sign gifts were used in order to authenticate the Gospel message in the Apostolic era as a foundation before the completion of the canon (see above).
Daniel 9.24-27 (NASB)
I have chosen to quote the NASB for this passage, because the overall flow of the passage is more fluid than the ESV.
“Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.”
This passage was dealt with in Part VI, so I will simply give a brief summary here. In this passage, a time of 70 weeks of years is given for the Jewish People before their destruction. This time frame is unanimously understood to be 490 years. The variance of interpretation comes as to whether there is a gap between the 69th and 70th weeks, however, this gap is foreign to the text and must be read into it (eisegesis). The 70 weeks (490 years) is ” to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place.” Being that the prophecy has no reason to insert a gap, we find it’s fulfillment in the 1st century with the coming of the Messiah, His death, burial, and resurrection, the destruction of the temple and the Jewish Roman war, and the sealing up of vision and prophecy in the completed writings of the canon. If there was to be no more new revelation, then there is no reason to expect a continuation of the revelatory gifts.
As I said, these verses have been hit on throughout the series thus far, so this post was more of summary of what has been said thus far, and not a strict exegetical look into the verses themselves beyond what has already been done. At this point in the series, we will leave the internal evidence and we will start looking briefly at the external evidence in the next post.
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