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NASB | Matthew 24:31 "And He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Matthew 24:31 "And He will send His angels with A LOUD TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His elect (God's chosen ones) from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. [Is 27:13; Zech 9:14] |
Subject: The ingathering of Israel? |
Bible Note: Hi Kalos, Since the Solagroup bases a large part of their argument on the use of the Greek eklektos, elect, ignoring that this is the Greek counterpart of the same terminology used of Israel in the OT, with this fact authenticated in the Septuagint, I do not find that argument credible. Regarding the use of "eklektos" in the NT, it is used 24 times, not just 10. 6 of those refer to individual persons. Another 4 of those are clearly by context of the church. The remaining 14 uses of "eklektos" are not specifically stated one way or the other, whether the church or Israel, and must be determined by correct understanding of doctrine, and therefore, cannot be used to teach doctrine (this includes these passages in question). Therefore, in my opinion, the NT usage of "eklektos" does not provide a credible argument that this elect "could only be the Church". Notice in Matthew 24, Jesus said His angels will "gather the elect." But in John 14, He said "I will come for you". So in Matthew, Jesus is teaching his disciples about what will happen to the "elect" in the third person, "they", but in John, He is teaching what will happen to those He is speaking to, in the second person, "you", His disciples. I have no disagreement with the generalized applications of Scripture. We can learn from all of it. But we cannot just say that because something is said to happen, it must happen to "me", because otherwise we are saying that a certain scripture doesn't apply to "me", and it all does. National Israel, the Church, the 144,000 sealed Jews, the Seventieth Week martyrs, the Millenial Kingdom "natural" inhabitants, all of these have specific things written about them that do not apply to the other groups, so this is not a valid argument. It seems the more I look at the Solagroup material, the more problems with their presentation I find. Love in Christ, Mark |