Daniel Denham Sin-Death of Realized Eschatology|Bellview Lectures

July 9th, 2015 09:49 AM | by William Bell | Eschatology.  

Daniel Denham Sin Death of Realized Eschatology

The End of Daniel Denham’s Lecture

Mr. Denham spoke on the subject of Realized eschatology. His topic addressed in particular sin death. He raised questions that demonstrate his lack of knowledge of the subject upon which he attempted to refute. Let’s briefly analyze his questions.

Question #1

If the church was dead in Judaism what killed it?

This questions betrays both an ignorance of covenant eschatology and ignorance of the Scriptures in general. First, the N.T. church did not exist prior to Pentecost of Acts 2.

Secondly, the church is a corporate body which is Christ himself, (Eph. 1:23). All who enter Christ through faith and baptism enter the church. (1 Cor. 12:13)

Before examining the above consider that Adam, Moses and Christ all represent covenantal corporate bodies. Adam and Moses are equivalents, one working individually, the other nationally with Israel.

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That the Bible (not realized eschatologists) place those who were in Adam and Moses under a state of death is undeniable. “For death reigned from Adam to Moses”, Rom. 5:14. That means death “ruled”, reigned or had dominion over man all the way from the time of Adam’s transgression until the end of Moses’ covenant.

Now, according to Denham, Moses’ covenant ended in 30 AD. From that point, we would ask him, why then do men  die physically if that is the death of Adam? Death’s reign would have ended at that point.

The next issue is for those who lived during the time from Adam to Moses. They were all under death and condemnation, a condition characterized by the ministration of death (2 Cor. 3:6-7). A more intelligent question for Mr. Denham, is how do the Jews on Pentecost become free from the death that reigned from Adam to Moses?

Death is caused by sin. (Rom. 5:12) The strength of sin was the Law (Rom. 5:20; 1 Cor. 15:56). If he reasons that the law ended at Jesus’ death, and likewise sin (Heb. 9:26), then Denham’s logic demands that no one is under sin or death since Jesus died on the cross.

That is universalism. Denham is therefore a universalist by implication of his doctrine.

But, if he reasons that even though Jesus died to put away sin (Heb. 9:26), it did not mean those who were present at Pentecost all arrived free from sin, then he acknowledges that sin remained an problem for the entire congregation of Israel after Jesus’ death and before the gospel was preached on Pentecost. If he denies that let him state it in unequivocal terms.

Jews Only

Now it is the case that those who were present at Pentecost of Acts 2 were Jews out of every nation under heaven, (Acts 2:5). Should we ask, why were they addressed by Peter as the nation of Israel? Why did he cite promises made to them from Joel, the Psalms and Samuel, etc.?

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Why was God yet keeping the promises of a “dead covenant” to those who were no longer in the covenant?

At the preaching of the gospel, those who obeyed were added to the church. Was the church an afterthought? Was it a substitute for a kingdom that was postponed at the death of Christ? Or, was the church part of God’s promise to Israel according to his eternal purpose? (Eph.. 3:5-6; 10-11)

Now we have a church, consisting solely of Jews. They received not biological life, but remission of sins, deliverance from sin. However, their redemption was not complete, per Eph. 1:13-14; 4:30; Lk. 21;28). The Holy Spirit (Joel’s prophecy) was given as an earnest or pledge to complete the redemption from sin death.

If the church is Christ,  (Eph. 1:23) and Christ is the salvation of the Jews, (Lk. 19:10; Jn. 4:22), then God promised the Christ/the church to the Jews. Therefore, the church is “of the Jews”. Christ was Israel’s Savior, therefore the church was “Israel’s church.

Born of a Woman, Born Under the Law

According to the Scriptures, Christ was born of a woman, born under the Law, (Gal. 4:4). How, did he become released from the law? How did Christ become free from the Covenant into which He was born? Did he apostatize from it while he lived? Did he renounce it in practice?

No.

Christ became free from the Law through His death. At that point he is the only person in all Israel that was free from the Law. Now the Bible says the death he died, he died to sin. (Rom. 6:10).

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If the death Christ died was death to sin, and if in dying he was released from the law, then, for the Jews, dying to sin and dying to the Law were soteriological equivalents. This is confirmed by a discussion on dying to the Law, per chapters 5, 6, and also Romans 7.

This conforms to Paul’s teaching in Romans that Israel was the “firstfruit” or the  natural branches from the root of the “natural” olive tree. Gentiles who came in later become “partakers” of Israel’s root and olive tree, not of their own! This is yet the case years after Pentecost, for the Gentiles do not enter Israel’s olive tree, i.e. the church until the house of Cornelius.

Already But Not Yet

The dying [to sin] and rising [to life] was not complete in the pre-parousia reign of Christ. Hence we see both the present and the future. This is called the already but not yet.

The salvation of the saints was “nearer” than when they first believed, Paul said, to the Romans (13:11,-12). Through faith, they had the “hope” of righteousness, Gal. 5:5 and the “hope” of salvation, (Rom . 8:24-25; 1 Thess. 5:8; Heb. 9:28; Rev. 19:2).

Has God Cast Away His People?

Now, if salvation is of the Jews, Paul asks, Has God cast away his people? He answers to the contrary, “God forbid”, with proof that he was an Israelite, of the tribe of Benjamin of the stock of Abraham. (Rom. 11:1-7).

Now if God did not cast off Israel, that means Israel was being carried through from the Old Covenant “ministration of death” to the New Covenant of “righteousness and life” as Israel. They were not a “new stock” of Abraham. They were the same stock, only transformed through Christ.

They had been delivered from the reign of death under Adam/Moses, and were now subjected to the reign of “life” in Christ Jesus.

Gentiles Forbidden To Keep the Law

At the Jerusalem conference, Peter and James, along with the elders and apostles, wrote a letter that Gentiles were not to be brought into the law of Moses. In other words, they were not to enter the covenant of Moses.

This means that only Jews were dying to the Law of Moses. Gentiles were not because they were never subject to it. They received life in Christ without having embraced the law. So life worked in them from that stand point. “So then death is working in us [Israel] but life in you [Gentiles]. (2 Cor. 4:12)

Therefore, it is incorrect as Denham charges through his straw man building tirade, that the “church” of the New Testament was dead. Rather, it is the church under the body of Moses, i.e. the O.T. church that was dead that had to die to Moses, and sin and become alive through Christ.

Again, it is not the church of the New Testament dying to the Law (body of Moses), it is the people of the old covenant who died to the body of Moses and who become married to another, Christ, through baptism into “His” death.

That answers Denham’s next inquiry: Question #2

Did the church exist as a body that alive…” prior to going into Judaism?

Not as the N.T. church, but as un-cast away Israel, was alive to sin and Judaism before they died with Christ and were made alive in Him.

Who Killed Israel the Old Covenant Church of Israel?

“But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead. I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me and by it killed me. (Rom. 7:8-11)

That is why Israel was said to be in the “graves”. As in Ezekiel’s dry bones, the nation was “in the graves” but they were not physically buried physically. The graves, bones, rattling, and sinews or muscle tissue, were all figurative descriptions of a dead body coming to life. It was Israel’s national covenant body.

Those were the same graves, or “dust” of Daniel 12:2. By the way, the Bellview Lectures had speakers who taught that Daniel 12 was fulfilled in 70AD. Some years ago, Glenn Hitchcock adamantly affirmed the same on their lectures. But almost all the resurrection passages in the N.T. quote from Daniel 12, so Bellview has a problem with its own teachings!

Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to everlasting contempt. When? At the time of the great tribulation (Matt. 24:21), at the end of the Jewish age at the sounding of  the trumpet, (Matt. 24:21), all with the coming of the Lord in Jesus’ own generation, (24:30-34).

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