Central Church - Who We Are

Question: A friend of mine says that he thinks Jesus says we should still uphold the Law, even though we aren't justified it. I believe the verses my friend cites are Matthew 5:17-20. Is this what Messianic Jews rely on to validate their denomination of Christianity? And why don't other Christians believe this way?

Answer: The Law was never a means of justification. In Romans 4 Paul argues clearly that Abraham was justified by faith, not by works of the Law. In 3:20 he says, "No one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law." It is permissable for Jews to observe the Law (or anyone for that matter) as long as they don't do it as a means of justification or view it as giving them a superior spirituality to others.

Jesus fulfilled the Law which makes many of its requirements obsolete. We no longer need to sacrifice, of course. He also interpreted the true intent of the Law. For example, keeping the Sabbath was never intended to exclude people from doing good things for others or providing their basic needs (Matthew 12:1-14). Tithing was not intended to be viewed as more important than mercy (Matthew 23:23,24). There are aspects of the Law that are timeless. The 10 Commandments give us God's moral requirements for all time (with the exception is the Sabbath being relegated to the seventh day, Saturday, whereas Paul indicates that it can be observed as a principle applicable to every day, Romans 14:5,6).

Messianic Jews don't necessarily keep all the Law, though they see in it the fulfillment in Christ that He was talking about in Matthew 5.

Randall Johnson

Question: Did Abraham and other Old Testament saints go to heaven, or since they lived before the sacrifice of Christ, will they be given a second chance during the Tribulation?

Answer: Romans 3:23-26 answers this question for us. Paul says that the redemption provided by faith in Christ's sacrifice proved God's justice in "forebearing" the sins of those who believed before Christ came. Though they offered animal sacrifices in obedience to God's command and provision for forgiveness, animal sacrifices could not really take away sin (Hebrews 10:4). So God's forgiveness of their sins was based on the anticipated sacrifice of Christ, the perfect sacrifice.

As to whether these saints are now in heaven, see question 2.

Hebrews 9:27 makes it clear that once a person dies they face the judgment of God as to their eternal destiny. The Old Testament believers were saved, granted eternal life, and are now in the presence of God. They do not need to be given a second chance during the Tribulation. No one who dies gets a second chance. You must make your decision for Christ on this side of death.

Randall Johnson

Question: What is Purgatory and isn’t it contradictory to the Gospel?

Answer: Purgatory is found in the teaching of the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Churches. It is a doctrine of the existence of an intermediate state, sometimes confused with Sheol in the Apocrypha (II Maccabees 12:39-45, "Judas...sent ...two thousand silver drachmas to Jerusalem for a sin-offering...expecting the fallen to rise again...and ...offered an atoning sacrifice to free the dead from their sin."). This place is punishment, though temporal. Believers who have died in grace, defined by the Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox as being in ecclesiastical favor and fellowship with the Church, spend a period of being purified to make them perfect before God. Then one is translated to Heaven. Purgatory is a place of suffering. It is a place of undefined extent, but monetary and other gifts to the Church, prayers, and acts of devotion are believed to shorten the stay of a loved one who has died and is now in Purgatory.

This view not only contradicts the Gospel, but also has no Old Testament or New Testament support. Where is the doctrine of grace and forgiveness provided by the only death of the perfect Son of God, Jesus Christ? Where is the teaching on final judgment that we must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ? There is even a flat contradiction by a passage which the Roman Catholics regard as Scripture in the Apocrypha in Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-4 ("But the souls of the just are in God's hand, and torment shall not touch them...they are at peace.").

The true intermediate state is found in II Corinthians 5:1-11. When we die as believers, we are immediately present with the Lord and absent from the body. Our spirits, thus unclothed or naked, are awaiting resurrection when the Lord Jesus Christ returns with His saints at the Rapture of the Church (I Thessalonians 4:13-18). The intermediate state is that temporal state when the soul consciously exists between the death and resurrection of the body. It is a conscious state. Proof: Matthew 22:32; Luke 20:37,38; Luke 23:42,43; II Corinthians 5:6-10; Philippians 1:21-24, and I Thessalonians 5:10. We are personally in the presence of Jesus Christ in a conscious state. It is a local state of place and condition. We are with Christ (Philippians 21-24 and II Corinthians 5:6-10). We are disembodied, incorporeal, pure spirits (II Corinthians 5:3 and I Thessalonians 4:16,17). It is a state of perfect holiness, perfectly purified at death (Revelation 21:27, II Corinthians 5:1-8, and I John 3:1-3). We are also in a state of blessing, joy, and bliss. Read Luke 23:43; Philippians 1:21-23; Revelation 6:9-11, and Revelation 13:14. We are also in a state of progress, being incomplete. This is not our final state. We are in the "naked" stage. Finally, we see that we will be full of activity, work, worship, and service. See Revelation 7:15, Matthew 25:21, and Revelation 4:4,5.

Terry Burnside

Question: Who are the 144,000 of Revelation 7?

Answer: The 144,000 are mentioned in the Apocalypse of Jesus called the Book of Revelation, Revelation 7. The sealed of Israel are mentioned in verse four. To the student of God's Word, if the literal sense to you makes good sense, look for no other sense. Take God's Word for what it says! It reads, "And I heard the number of those who were sealed. One hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed." NKJV

The 144,000 are most likely evangelistic witnesses during the Tribulation Hour. Revelation 7:9-17 speaks of a great multitude saved out of this time. Since this follows the sealing of the 144,000 it is possible they are meant to be seen as the witnesses who reached this great multitude, which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues are redeemed (Revelation 7:9). They may specifically be those who lead the nation of Israel as a whole to salvation in Jesus as Messiah (Romans 11:25-32).

The wicked get their seal of 666 in Revelation 13:17, 18 under the super-deceiver, the great imitator, the Antichrist. The 144,000 genuine believers in chapter 7 of Revelation during the Tribulation Period receive their seal from the angel of God. The seal is principally a guarantee of ownership and security.

The 144,000 cannot be the church, for the church is already in Heaven. Here we have Jews with Jewish names to head up Jewish tribes in a Jewish nation - Israel. The 144,000 Jewish servants are anointed by the Holy Spirit (Joel 2:28,29). These verses describe the situation as these Spirit-filled servants of God proclaim the gospel of the kingdom. The message of the 144,000 centers on the person and work of Jesus (Acts 10:43). They preach the message of His shed blood and proclaim the advent of the King (Matthew 24:14). This advent is the Revelation or revealing of Christ as King (19:16).

Who are the 144,000? They are 144,000 Jewish "Billy Grahams" sealed by the Spirit of God and preaching the good news of Jesus Christ for the age and dispensation called the Seven Year Tribulation Period.

Terry Burnside

Question:Your thoughts please. When Jesus resurrected and was seen by the disciples, he retained the scars of the nails. I'm curious about scars for the other injuries he sustained, the crown, the spear, the scourging.

Why would he retain the scars of anything? Is the premise that his actual body resurrected? If so, shouldn't he have been fairly hideous to behold what with all those holes and missing flesh and such? It seems that those on the road to Emmaus would have been really shocked. If not, then why did he retain just those particular scars? Just for Thomas?

Answer:My understanding is that those particular scars (which according to Jn. 20:20,27 include the spear wound) were kept on an otherwise completely restored body in order to remind of what he went through for us. It seems the body he now has is somehow related to the original one, but has unusual properties not normal to our bodies at present. It seems that on the road to Emmaus it was an act of the Father or Jesus himself that kept the disciples from recognizing him (Lk. 24:16). But normally, when he made an appearance, as to the disciples in the upper room, they immediately recognized him. There is a lot of information not given us which keeps us curious. Paul only explains that the "body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body" (1 Corinthians 15:42-44).

Randall Johnson

Question: Can you explain Matthew 16:28 to me. Is it possible that His kingdom has already come and we are really living out the end-times?

Answer: Most likely Jesus was referring to what happened immediately after that (ch. 17), the transfiguration, which was a kingdom expression of who he really is, the God/Man, whose glory shines forth. Peter, James and John got to witness the "kingdom" in those moments with Christ and Moses and Elijah.

The Corinthians seemed to have bought into a current teaching of false teachers at the time that the kingdom had already come. Paul sarcastically, though with pain and concern for the Corinthians, writes, "I wish that you really had become kings so that we might be kings with you!" (1 Corinthians 4:8). As a result, they had begun to question the resurrection (ch. 15) being a bodily, future event, and posed the idea that it had occurred in a present, spiritual sense. But Jesus made it clear that when he comes again and resurrects believers, no one will be able to miss it. "As lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man" (Matthew 24:27).

Randall Johnson

Question: Why do you think God required the blood of an animal for atonement of sin?

Answer: After God confronted Adam and Eve in the garden about their disobedience He replaced their fig leaf coverings with animal skins. To do that, of course, He had to kill and skin an animal. An innocent animal had to die to cover the guilt of Adam and Eve. This was the beginning of animal sacrifice. The blood that was shed by the animal was the proof that it had died. It had lost it's life fluid.

In the sacrificial system developed by Moses at God's direction, Leviticus 16 describes the role of the high priest when he sacrifices a goat for Israel's sin. "He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites - all their sins - and put them on the goat's head" (verse 21). This symbolizes that the goat is taking the guilt of human sin and dying for it so the humans don't have to die for their sins.

Hebrews 10, however, makes it clear that the blood of animals cannot really take away sin (10:4), and that these sacrifices were only symbols of the sacrifice of the God-Man, Jesus the Messiah, whose sacrifice alone could take away human sin (10:8-14). The animal sacrifices taught those who brought them that sin cost a life. But it was meant to also teach them that they needed to be looking for a more complete answer. That answer was found in Jesus' sacrifice of himself on the cross. Of course, because he was a sinless sacrifice and because God accepted his sacrifice, God raised him from the dead to become the head of a new race - Christians.

Randall Johnson

Question: How do you harmonize what seems to be an open invitation from God to keep asking, seeking, and knocking (Matthew 7:7,8) and to pray continuously (1 Thessalonians 5:17), with His injunction against Moses' continued asking to be able to go into the promised land (Deuteronomy 3:23-27), and His telling Paul that He would not remove the thorn from his flesh after Paul had asked three times (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)?

Answer: I'm working on the theory that God wants us to keep asking until we are certain he has said yes or no. If he hasn't said no then we are free to keep asking for what we want and to trust that he is interested in our asking. Of course, once he answers yes, there is no more need to keep asking.

Randall Johnson

Question: I just started an accountability group and I was wondering if you could tell me where to look in the bible for information on proper accountability.

Answer: It's pretty hard to find a place in Scripture that talks about accountability per se. Rather, there are principles derived from the Bible that help us think about it. For example, when Paul was raising an offering for the financial relief of the Jerusalem church, he made sure that he had several men travel with him from church to church to collect that offering, men whom the churches knew and trusted (2 Corinthians 8:16-21). He was going to great lengths to maintain accountability for his actions with the money. Temptation can get to anyone and even if it didn't, others might still raise questions.

We are also taught in Scripture that we are to confess our sins to one another and so find healing (James 5:16). But we know from Jesus' teaching about confronting a brother or sister who has sinned against you, that you are to first try to resolve it between just the two of you (Matthew 18:15). This suggests that indiscriminate confession of sin to any and everybody in the church is not the best policy. You need to do that in a context of safety and understanding. That is why it is usually best to have a group of believers with whom you can be honest and trust that they will care for you.

Accountability groups are only as effective as you make them. You must choose to be real and open, because it is our tendency to continue hiding. Talk to your group about establishing a core of questions you commit to ask each other each time you meet so that you will find it harder to wiggle out of being accountable.

Randall Johnson

Question: I'm trying to do some research into a concept that came to me several years ago concerning the singers and musicians leading the army of Israel into battle. I'm not coming up with much in the way of examples except for one in Psalm 68. For some reason, I had it in my head that they always led the army of Israel into battle. Am I wrong and if not where can I read about it?

Answer: Great question, Dennis. It seems to me that this was not the normal way Israel did battle. The reason I say that is in 2 Chronicles 20:21 Jehoshaphat, after receiving a word from the Lord about a battle against Moab and Ammon, appoints singers to precede the army. It seems this was an unusual thing to do given the circumstances. One commentator says, "The report of an army going into battle singing the praises of God is unique in the Bible." The singers in the procession of Psalm 68 are actually singing of the victory already accomplished. The victorious king is marching back into the city with his victorious army and a host of captives from the defeated army.

The thing we learn from this account of Jehoshaphat is that when we put our trust in God to fight our battles it is only appropriate to praise Him, even before the outcome of the battle is determined, because we are demonstrating our trust in Him by doing so.

Randall Johnson