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NASB | Ephesians 5:1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Ephesians 5:1 Therefore become imitators of God [copy Him and follow His example], as well-beloved children [imitate their father]; |
Subject: there's many denomination yet 1 spirit |
Bible Note: The Millenarian Revival - Part 6 At the 1833 Powerscourt Conference, Darby continued his attack upon the apostasy of the churches and stressed the need for true believers to gather in the name of the Lord alone. More significantly, he then presented his view of the church as a parenthesis in the prophetic fulfillment between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks of Daniel. It was over this issue and over the issue of the rapture of the church prior to the Tribulation that conflict began to develop between Darby and another leader in the Brethren movement, Benjamin W. Newton. Newton refused to attend the 1834 conference and instead organized a competing conference at Plymouth, an act Darby regarded as schismatic. It was not, however, until Darby began to make periodic visits to Switzerland for seven years beginning in 1838 that he began to synthesize his views more completely. During 1840 he delivered a series of eleven lectures at Lausanne, giving systematic exposition of his theology for the first time. When Darby returned to England in 1845, he went to Plymouth where Newton had continued to minister since the inception of that particular group. The inevitable and bitter strife that ensued replaced the harmony that had once characterized the Plymouth group. Darby accused Newton of attempting to dominate the meeting, refusing to co-operate with other leaders, refusing to allow other leaders to challenge his teaching, and other such ecclesiastic transgressions. Later he added the charge of heresy in respect to the doctrine of Christ, and Newton retracted those things which were in error in his former statements. This did not satisfy Darby, however, and after Newton left, Darby began to excommunicate not only individuals but whole churches that maintained any fellowship with Newton and even those who fellowshipped with them. It is important to note, however, that the initial rupture between Darby and Newton came over the issue concerning the status of the church during the Great Tribulation. Darby taught that the church was to be raptured and that the witness during the Tribulation would be carried on by a semi-Christian group that was not a part of the church. None of the events after the first few chapters in the book of Revelation had yet occurred nor could they be expected to occur until the rapture took place. Newton, on the other hand, believed that the persecuted "faithful" were simply members of the church which would go through the Tribulation. It must be emphasized that the crux of the debates that took place over the rapture was a more fundamental issue: the relationship between Old and New Testament saints. Darby made a radical separation between the two groups of saints, positing that the church (Pentecost to rapture) has a special glory and that the Old Testament saints had an inferior relationship to God. In his system, the difference between these groups was vertical (distinguishing heavenly and earthly peoples), not horizontal (portraying the historical and typological relationship between promise and fulfillment). Newton maintained that the Old Testament saints were an integral part of the church and shared in the same glory of post-Pentecostal saints. It would not be accurate, however, to say that Darby's views concerning a dichotomy between Old and New Testament saints were merely the result of his heated controversy with Newton. In Darby's own thinking it seems that his view of this matter crystallized in the midst of a dual quest for personal and ecclesiastical purity. According to his own testimony, radical transition or "deliverance" occurred during a time when he was laid up due to a leg injury: When I came to understand that I was united to Christ in heaven [Eph. 2:6], and that, consequently, my place before God was represented by His own, I was forced to the conclusion that it was no longer a question with God of this wretched "I" which had wearied me during six or seven years, in presence of the requirements of the law.23 Thus Darby came to lay hold of that righteousness which is apart from the law and is only to be found in Christ (Phil. 3:9). This dramatic discovery concerning personal holiness was accompanied by a new view of the church and of corporate purity: It then became clear to me that the church of God, as His considers it, was composed only of those who were so united to Christ [Eph. 2:6], whereas Christendom, as seen externally, was really the world, and could not be considered as the "church."24 |