THE CHURCH AGE

When Jesus was about to ascend to heaven, He told His disciples to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all nations (Mt. 28:19-20; Mk. 16:15).  And yet, it took the Apostles years to come to realize that the Church was to be made up of both Jews and Gentiles (Acts 15).  It is amazing that, with all their focus upon converting the Jews to faith in Jesus, they seemed oblivious to the fact that God was about to set Israel aside and to focus upon reaching the Gentiles.  They did not understand that there was to be a huge gap between Daniel's Sixty-ninth Week, and the Seventieth (Dan. 9:24-27)!  They did not understand that the two loaves containing leaven used to celebrate Pentecost, represented the Church made up of imperfect Jews and Gentiles (Lev. 23:15-23; Acts 2:1-47)!

Today, the Church is aware of these things.  We even have the witness of the history of the early Church, to show the transition from just a Jewish faith, to an "open to all" faith.  Of note, is that the word "synagogue" appears sixty-eight times in the New Testament, and yet it appears only twice after the Book of Acts, and both of them have a negative connotation, referring to it as the "synagogue of Satan" (Rev. 2:9 and 3:9).  It was not until the Peter learned that the Gentiles were to be a part of the Church in Acts 10, and that the Apostle Paul was specifically called to be the Apostle to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15; 18:6; 22:21; 26:16-17; Rom. 11:13; Gal. 2:7-9; etc.), that the Church was open to "whosoever" would believe in Jesus!

But just in case the Church begins to believe the Jews are no longer the "people of God," the Apostle Paul wrote this:

"For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.  And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:  for this is My covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.  As concerning the Gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes.  For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.  For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:  even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.  For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all" (Rom. 11:25-32).

Replacement Theology is a false teaching;

the Church Age is but a "parenthetical gap"

before Daniel's Seventieth Week, the Tribulation!