Back again family and thanks for your comments and questions.
This thread is born from my many debates about the rapture with learned pre-wrather's and post-tribbers who will easily dismantle the arguments I see presented in this forum because these guys were previously pre-trib teachers. One guy, my favorite foil, was a Calvary Chapel pre-trib teacher for 20 years and dismantles all the pre-trib verses I see you present. Another a CC pastor for decades and these men earnestly contend against their previously held views on the pre-trib.
I see pre-tribbers join them because they are not adequately taught about the pre-trib. and it was my intention to press on in this thread in the beginning but we hit the first hurdle, a misunderstanding of what the word hope means. Even when I try to make this as simple as possible by using brief Encyclopedia and Dictionary references, I still see some of you are not convinced! There needs to be a proper foundation laid on what Hope is because the blessed hope is not one hope for the future, all hope is to be blessed in the future.
Then adoption totally confused many and still does. Why? Because some of you don't understand the three tenses of your own salvation.
I hoped to equip you better in two ways, first of all in defense of the rapture and secondly by increasing in the knowledge of God. However I see I am being challenged on what I thought you understood.
I am going try to simplify how FUTURE ADOPTION differs from PRESENT ADOPTION as per Margery's request in a moment, but I have to state this, Jesus gave gifts to the church... teachers.
I see so many posts in other forums saying that all we need is the Holy Spirit and then the Holy Spirit taught me and we end up with the Holy Spirit opposing the Holy Spirit because some are still on milk and misunderstand the scriptures. We need both: good teachers and the Holy Spirit, not one or the other and this is what the Word teaches us. The Word, the Holy Spirit and Teachers are all the gifts of God to the church.
Margery, in order to understand adoption, we need to forget completely about adoption for a moment and understand SALVATION, because all the doctrines of the faith need to be examined in this past, present and future light and then adoption as a past, present and future reality makes sense. It is not just adoption that is being misunderstood and even contested here, but it is how God works out our salvation.
If there is no future adoption, then this thread is pointless. If there is, then the questions is, how does it develop from our present understanding of adoption. To bring you all with me I need to switch topics for a moment and get you to consider your personal salvation and what you expect for the future
.I am going to select some quotes from Arthur Pink from 1928 regarding salvation...
The subject of God's "so great salvation" (Heb. 2:3), as it is revealed to us in the Scriptures and made known in Christian experience, is worthy of a life's study. Anyone who supposes that there is now no longer any need for him to prayerfully search for a fuller understanding of the same, needs to ponder, "If any man thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know" (1 Cor. 8:2). The fact is that the moment any of us really takes it for granted that he already knows all that there is to be known on
any subject treated of in Holy Writ, he at once cuts himself off from any further light thereon. That which is most needed by all of us in order to a better understanding of Divine things is not a brilliant intellect—but a truly humble heart and a teachable spirit, and for
that we should daily and fervently pray—for we possess it not by nature...
...Even where there is fundamental soundness in their views upon Divine salvation—yet many have such inadequate and one-sided conceptions that other aspects of this truth, equally important and essential, are often overlooked and tacitly denied.
How many, for example, would be capable of giving a simple exposition of the following texts, "Who has saved us" (2 Tim. 1:9). "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12), "Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed" (Romans 13:11). Now those verses do not refer to three different salvations—but to three separate aspects of one and unless we learn to distinguish sharply between them, there can be nothing but confusion and cloudiness in our thinking. Those passages present three distinct phases and stages of salvation—salvation . . .
As an accomplished fact,
As a present process
As a future prospect
So many today ignore these distinctions, jumbling them together. Some contend for one and argue against the other two; and vice versa. Some insist they are already saved, and deny that they are now being saved. Some declare that salvation is entirely future, and deny that it is in any sense already accomplished. Both are wrong.
The fact is, that the great majority of professing Christians fail to see that "salvation" is one of the most comprehensive terms in all the Scriptures, including predestination, regeneration, justification, sanctification and glorification. They have far too cramped an idea of the meaning and scope of the word "salvation" (as it is used in the Scriptures), narrowing its range too much, generally confining their thoughts to but a single phase. They suppose "salvation" means no more than the new birth or the forgiveness of sins. Were one to tell them that salvation is a protracted process, they would view him with suspicion; and if he affirmed that salvation is something awaiting us in the future, they would at once dub him a heretic. Yet
they would be the ones to err...
...Let us now supplement the first three verses quoted and show there are other passages in the New Testament which definitely refer to each distinct tense of salvation.
First, salvation as
an accomplished fact, "Your faith has saved you" (Luke 7:50), "by grace you have been saved" (Greek, and so translated in the R.V.—Eph. 2:8), "according to His mercy He saved us" (Titus 3:5).
Second, salvation as
a present process, in course of accomplishment, not yet completed, "Unto us which are being saved" (1 Cor. 1:18—R.V.); "Those who believe to the saving (not 'salvation') of the soul" (Heb. 10:39).
Third, salvation as a future prospect, "Sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation" (Heb. 1:14), "receive with meekness the engrafted Word, which is able to save your souls" (James 1:21), "Kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Peter 1:5).
Thus, by putting together these different passages, we are clearly warranted in formulating the following statement—every genuine Christian has been saved, is now being saved, and will yet be saved—how and from what, we shall endeavor to show.
END QUOTE: If you want to read the whole sermon copy some of this into search.
We are all in a state of hope in all our doctrines and a Word study on hope is needed for many of you so you understand the dictionary and encyclopedia is giving you the boiled down distilled essential that needS to be studied in-depth.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
(3) Yet, certain though the hope might be, it was not yet attained, and the interim was an opportunity to develop faith, "the substance of the things hoped for" (
Hebrews 11:1 ). Indeed, hope is simply faith directed toward the future, and no sharp distinction between faith and hope is attainable.
The Holman Bible Dictionary
"Trustful expectation, particularly with reference to the fulfillment of God's promises. Biblical
hope is the anticipation of a favorable outcome under God's guidance. More specifically,
hope is the confidence that what God has done for us in the past guarantees our participation in what God will do in the future. This contrasts to the world's definition of
hope as “a feeling that what is wanted will happen.” Understood in this way,
hope can denote either a baseless optimism or a vague yearning after an unattainable good. If
hope is to be genuine
hope, however, it must be founded on something (or someone) which affords reasonable grounds for confidence in its fulfillment. The Bible bases its
hope in God and His saving acts."
Barnes
Christians only have the prospect of deliverance. To them is held out
the hope of final rescue, and of an eternal inheritance beyond all these sufferings.
They wait, therefore, for the full benefits of the adoption; the complete recovery even of the body from the effects of sin, and the toils and trials of this live; and thus they are sustained by hope, which is the argument which the apostle has in view;
Romans 8:23-24. With this view of the general scope of the passage, we may examine the particular phrases....
Now to put Hope, Adoption & Salvation together...
Expositor's Greek Testament (Denney) explains
This sentence explains why Paul can speak of Christians as
waiting for adoption, while they are nevertheless in the enjoyment of sonship. It is because salvation is essentially related to the future. ‘We wait for it: for we were saved in hope.....Hope, the apostle argues, is an essential characteristic of our salvation; but hope turned sight is hope no more, for who hopes for what he sees? We do not see all the Gospel held out to us, but it is the object of our Christian hope nevertheless; it is as true and sure as the love of God which in Christ Jesus reconciled us to Himself and gave us the Spirit of adoption, and therefore we wait for it in patience.
Dear sister Marg, you asked for a super simplified explanation of how where I am going differs from adoption as we have all understood it. This is the minimum proof I think I can give to help some to grasp that our present spiritual blessing is not the fulfillment of the state of hope for adoption or salvation that God intents to be far more glorious than we now experience, and it is fulfilled in heaven before the Father, and that demands the rapture to heaven and not back to earth.
The blessed hope AND the appearing of Jesus, (some versions miss out the Greek word AND making the glorious appearing of Jesus the blessed hope) is destined to be fulfilled in heaven.
IF there is clearly a past, present and a future fulfillment for adoption, and salvation, and all the doctrines that are included in the general term our salvation. then the post-trib doesn't have a leg to stand on before I even address what happens in heaven.
As pre-tribbers we need to know our doctrines and how they are in a present state of HOPE and HOPE always means the future.
William Newell - Now hope is expecting something better! The very fact that we have not seen it realized as yet, begets within us that grace which is so precious to God--patience. But note, it is not patience in the abstract that is set forth here: but patient waiting for the coming liberty of the glory of the children of God. (
Newell's Commentary on Romans)
Marvin Vincent rightly reminds us that "In the New Testament the word (hope-
elpis) always relates to a future good."
Finally, while Adrian thinks I am slow, Packer is much slower and I quote him...
Therefore I pray that the main point of the message is plain from Hebrews and from Romans, namely, that
the biblical concept of hope, which we are going to be examining for the next 16 weeks, is not the ordinary concept we use in everyday speech. It does not imply uncertainty or lack of assurance. Instead, biblical hope is a confident expectation and desire for something good in the future.
