(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Hello everybody, it's ministertal23 back with another video. I'm pre-recording this video because as some of you know, sometimes I have issues with the internet and this is going to be kind of a long video so I don't want to do a live stream. But anyway, in this video I want to talk about the biblical definition of the church and what the church is and why I do not believe in the universal church and the danger of the doctrine of the universal church in corrupting other doctrine. So what is the universal church? Well, many Christians in this world believe in this doctrine that the church is a universal or a Catholic church. The word Catholic comes from the Greek word katholikos which means universal. So it's a doctrine which the Roman Catholics, the Orthodox Christians, and many Protestants hold to because they all adhere to the Nicene Creed and the Apostles' Creed and other confessions of faith which proclaim this doctrine. That is the doctrine that all true Christians worldwide collectively make up this universal worldwide body called the church. So if you ask a Roman Catholic or a Lutheran or an Anglican about the church, they will make the claim that the church is made up of all believers or all the saved or all baptized throughout the world regardless of whether or not they are in a single congregation. However, the scriptural definition of the church is simply a local assembly or congregation of those which are saved and baptized. The Bible never talks about an invisible or a visible universal church. It never speaks of the church as a large worldwide organization but as a local assembly and I'll prove that from the scripture today. So what is the definition of the word church according to the Bible? Well, there's an Old Testament scripture which is quoted in the New Testament which helps define for us what a church is and that would be Psalm 22 verse 22. It says, I will declare thy name unto my brethren. In the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. So here the Bible uses the word congregation and that means a gathering of people together. So when believers gather together in one place, that is a congregation. Now in the New Testament that very same verse is quoted but the word congregation is replaced with the word church. In Hebrews chapter 2 verse 12 it says, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren. In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. So the words congregation and church have the same meaning. They're used interchangeably in the Bible. A church is simply a congregation. It's a gathering of believers. I'm not in the same church as somebody who is a Christian halfway across the world because I've never been in the same place as that particular Christian. We've never met together in the name of Christ. Yes they might be a brother, yes they might be a fellow saved person, but if I never congregate with them, we're not of the same church. It's not one church. Now this can further be proved by Jesus' command concerning church discipline in Matthew chapter 18 where he says in Matthew 18 verse 17, And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church. But if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Now in the context, Jesus is addressing how to deal with the situation of a brother who trespasses against you. First we are supposed to confront him personally and if they don't listen we're supposed to take two or three more witnesses to confront that brother. And if they still don't listen, here in verse 17 Jesus says to tell the matter to the church. This is by the way only the second time that the word church appears in the Bible. Now if the word church meant a universal body of all believers in the world, this wouldn't make any sense. This would be impossible. Obviously the context indicates that when he says the church he is not referring to every Christian or every saved person in the world. That's impossible and Jesus does not expect you to tell every believer in the world about your personal matter. He's talking about a congregation. That makes sense because as we've already seen by comparing Psalm 22 22 and Hebrews 2 12 that is what the word church means. So when Jesus says the church he is talking about a local assembly or a congregation of brethren. He's not talking about some universal, mystical, invisible worldwide organization or anything like that. Now here's another proof that when the Bible talks about the church it is referring to a local congregation and not the wholeness of Christendom or all the saved. In Acts chapter 5 verse 10 to 11 it says Then fell she straight down at his feet and yielded up the ghost and the young men came in and found her dead and carrying her forth buried her by her husband and great fear came upon all the church and upon as many as heard these things. So here we have the story of Sapphira the wife of Ananias who lied to the Holy Ghost concerning that which she had given unto the apostles. She held back part of the price of the land and said that she had given all of the price and as a result of that she was struck dead as we see in this verse here verse 10. Now when this happened in verse 11 it says great fear came upon all the church. Now again just like in Matthew 18 this would make no sense if it were talking about every Christian around the world or all of the saved. Jesus and his apostles had spent three and a half years going around Galilee and Judea preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ getting people saved and many also had been saved on the day of Pentecost who were in Jerusalem for the feast but who were from other nations and had since departed. We read about that in Acts chapter 2 about people who were Persians and Medes and Libyans and different nations who were there in Jerusalem but who weren't actually inhabitants of the land. So at the time that this happened there were already thousands of Christians who were not in Jerusalem but had spread out throughout the land of Judea and Galilee and around the Middle East and around the Mediterranean region. When it says great fear came upon all the church do you really believe that saying that every believer became afraid because of this event? Every believer wasn't there. Every believer didn't hear about it. It's talking about the local assembly at Jerusalem. The church was at Jerusalem or the church which is at Jerusalem which is talked about in Acts chapter 8 verse 1 and Acts chapter 11 verse 22. It's a specific congregation not a universal body. Here's another clear verse which shows what the meaning of the church is. First Corinthians chapter 14 verse 23, if therefore the whole church be come together into one place and all speak with tongues and there come in those that are unlearned or unbelievers will they not say that ye are mad? Here Paul speaks about the whole church be come together into one place. Now this makes sense when you consider that the church is a congregation and he's writing to a specific congregation, he's writing to a specific church and that would be the church at Corinth. He is talking about all the members of the Corinthian church gathering together. It would be impossible for all Christians to gather together in one place. Again the church here is not a universal group of everybody worldwide, it's talking about a local congregation. When we come together in one place according to the Bible that is the church. Now another fact that proves that the church is not a universal body is that the scriptures use the word church as, plural, 37 times. A few examples are Acts 9, 31, 15, 41, 16, 5, 19, 37, Romans 16, 4, Romans 16, 16, 1 Corinthians 11, 16, etc. I'm not going to read all of the scripture references for sake of time. But the fact that the Bible talks about different and unique churches, the fact that the Bible talks about churches, plural, shows again that there is not just one universal apostolic church like the Catholics and the Protestants teach. For example the seven churches in Asia are seven congregations in seven cities in one region which Jesus in the book of Revelation told John to write unto. It does not say the one church that's located in seven different cities or seven different locations but seven churches in seven cities. Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, and Ephesus. There are seven churches and of course there's many more. My church that I go to is a congregation of believers. Those within my church are not the same church as those in the church the next time over. We may believe the same thing, we may use the same Bible, we may have the same structure, we may worship and serve the same God and they're both churches of Jesus Christ but they're not just part of one universal church. They are not the same church, okay? I am not part of the same church as somebody in a congregation who I've never met, okay? The Bible never talks about anything of the sort. The universal church doctrine is simply made up. The Bible only talks about local assemblies and congregations. It talks about multiple churches, alright? Not one Catholic church. That word Catholic and that word universal is never used in the Bible. It's a tradition and it's a doctrine of man and the only reason why many Christians believe it today is because they still hold to the Catholic doctrine established at the Council of Nicaea. Not because they got it from the Scriptures, not because they got it from the teachings of Jesus and the apostles, they got it from tradition, okay? Now, some people may object with certain Scriptures that are twisted to make it seem like there is a universal church. For example, the Scriptures often do use the phrase the church instead of referring to churches plural. We've already seen a few examples of that. Other examples include the following. Colossians chapter 1 verse 18, it says, And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn of the dead, and in all things he might have the preeminence. Ephesians 1.22, and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church. Now before talking about the main subject at hand, I want to kind of go off on a rabbit trail real quick because I want to attack some false doctrine of Roman Catholicism which is directly refuted by these two verses. Now in this video I'm particularly attacking not just the Catholic or the Protestant belief in the universal church, but I'm attacking both the visible and the invisible church. The visible universal church of the Catholics and the Orthodox as well as the invisible universal church of the Protestants. If it's universal, it's false. But the Roman Catholics believe that their Pope is the head of their universal church according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church section 899. However, the Bible says here that Jesus is the head of the body which is the church. It's not the Pope that's the head of the church, it's Jesus. But anyway, is this verse, or these two verses, Colossians 1.18 and Ephesians 1.22, talking about a universal church or the local assembly? Since it uses the singular and it uses the definite article, does that mean that Christ is the head of all believers worldwide as the Catholics and the Orthodox and the Protestants claim? Does it say that Jesus is the head of this mystical universal church? Well no, first of all, because we've already seen examples of the use of the singular in contexts where it can't be universal, like Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 14, 13. And secondly, because it is written later in the same book of Ephesians about the same subject of the head of the church, in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 23 it says, For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church and he is the savior of the body. So here there is a comparison going on between the authority that a husband has over his wife and the authority that Christ has over the church. Just as Christ is the head of the church, which we've already seen in the other verses, the husband is the head of the wife. But the Catholics and the Protestants, they look at these verses that I've just read, and they say, see, the Bible talks about the church. So Christ is the head of one universal church because it's singular, because it uses the definite article. Okay, well, then there must be a universal husband and a universal wife, because notice that this verse, Ephesians 5, 23, refers to the husband and the wife as singular as well. Okay? It says the husband is the head of the wife. Well, who is the husband? Who is the wife? Is there only one husband? Is there only one wife? No, that doesn't make any sense. In fact, in the following verse, it says, in verse 24, Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. So now it switches to the plural and it says wives and husbands. So why is that? Because in verse 23, the statement of the husband and the wife is talking about in general, just as in the following verse, 1 Corinthians 11, verse 3, But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. Now, is there such thing as a universal man or a universal woman? No. Everybody who reads this verse, and also Ephesians 5, 23, understands exactly what it means. It's talking about man in general. It's not talking about a specific man or saying that there's only one man or only one woman. Just as the head of the woman is the man, the head of the church is Christ. That's what it's saying. Now think of the following statement. The greatest invention of the previous century is the computer. Now there's nothing grammatically incorrect about that statement. If I said that, you and everybody else would understand exactly what I meant. I'm not talking about a specific computer. I'm not insinuating that there's only one computer or that there is a universal computer. I'm not, okay, just because I use the definite article does not mean that there is such thing as a universal computer. I am referring to the computer as an idea, not actually as a single object. So if you read Ephesians 5, 23, it becomes clear that when the scriptures use the word the church or the phrase the church, it is referring to the institution or the establishment of the church. It is not saying that there is only one universal church, just as there's not only one universal wife or a universal husband or a universal man or whatever. Another example is 1 Corinthians 14, 34. This also proves that there's no universal church. It says that women should keep silence in the church. Now does that mean that Christian women can never talk? Because according to the Protestants, the church is everybody that's saved. So if the church is everybody that's saved, then that means that Christian women can never talk. They always need to keep silence. Well, that's nonsense, okay? It's talking about when we congregate together in the name of Christ. They should keep silence in that setting in the local assembly, not in general. If they're a Christian part of Christendom or saved, that doesn't mean that they can never talk, okay? Just talking about in the assembly in the church. That's what it is, an assembly, a congregation, okay? Now, as far as I know, there's only one other passage in the Scriptures that the Catholics and Protestants will twist to teach this false doctrine, and that is the following. 1 Corinthians 12, verse 12 to 13. It says, For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. Okay? Now, again, you have to consider the fact that Paul is writing, you have to consider who Paul is writing to in the context of the chapter as well. 1 Corinthians chapter 12 is about spiritual gifts and different talents given to each member of the church, but what church are we talking about here? What body are we talking about here? That's written of in verse 12 and 13. Well, the body at Corinth, the church at Corinth, that's who he's writing to. It says later in that same chapter, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 27, Ye are the body of Christ and members in particular, and when he says ye, who is he speaking to? Who is he writing this letter to? To the church at Corinth. Is he speaking to the Ephesians? No. Is he speaking to the Galatians? No. Is he speaking to the Philippians? No. Although the same truths apply to them, this epistle was originally written to a single church and he is telling the members of that church at Corinth that ye are the members of the body of Christ. That is the individual church. He's not saying every Christian in the world is one body. There's nothing in that passage nor in the context that indicates that. He's not saying that every saved and baptized Christian is one body. He's saying that every saved and baptized Corinthian is one body, and this could apply to every individual church, but Paul isn't writing to every church. He's writing to a particular church. We can apply this to every Christian in general and say this is talking about all believers worldwide. All believers worldwide have been baptized into one body and there's one universal church. That's not what it says. It's talking about a particular church, the church at Corinth. So the Corinthians were all together one body and one church. The Ephesians also are one body and one church. Today, whatever congregation you go to, if you go to church, the members within that church are together one body and one church, but that does not make them one church with every single believer or other congregation in the world. That's not what the verse or the context indicates. So is the universal church doctrine biblical? No. The Bible does not talk about it anywhere. Search the scriptures. Every time the word church is used in the Bible, it's either in the plural, talking about different separate congregations, it's referring to the church as an institution or the general idea or the establishment of the church, such as in Ephesians chapter five as I've shown earlier, or it's talking about a particular or a specific church, like the phrase the church which is at Jerusalem or the church which is at Sardis. Today I might say the church which is at Coolidge or the church which is at Eloy or the church which is at Casa Grande, which are all cities in my area. And of course, we tend not to call churches those names anymore, but we tend to put more descriptive titles like Faith Baptist Church or Hope Baptist Church or whatever. But the point is that the church is a local congregation, okay? Nothing else. The Bible never teaches anything else. But I'm not done. Next, we're going to move on to the second part of this subject and of this video, and that is how the universal church doctrine corrupts other doctrine and creates other false beliefs. Of course, this doctrine is bad because it's wrong. We ought to believe the truth of the Bible no matter what and search for the truth no matter what. But there are extra repercussions of believing and teaching this unbiblical doctrine. The Bible says in Galatians chapter five, verse nine, a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. That's a very simple statement. In the context, Paul is warning about false doctrine, particularly the Judaizer doctrine which is corrupt into the Galatian churches. Now, leaven in the scriptures represents several things. It could represent sin, such as in First Corinthians chapter five. It could represent false prophets. It could represent false doctrine. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 16, verse 11 to 12, how is it that you do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread that you should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. So Jesus refers to the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees and refers to them as leaven and tells his disciples to beware of those things, to beware of those false doctrines. He's not referring to literal leaven and he's not referring to sinful behavior like in First Corinthians five, but rather the leaven that we are to be wary of is false doctrine. Now let's take that principle that's stated in Galatians 5, 9, that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump and see how the little leaven of the false doctrine of the universal church corrupts other doctrine and creates more false doctrine. Now it's amazing how stuff like this works because if you're wrong on a major thing like ecclesiology, like the subject of the church and what that means, then you'll have a twisted view on everything that's related to the subject of the church, okay? So I want to focus on a category of doctrines in particular today that are messed up by the belief in the universal church. And all these doctrines are related to the doctrine of dispensationalism, including the idea of a church age, the belief in a preacher rapture, the support of Zionism, and the idea that the Jews are still God's chosen people as well as the idea of what the bride of Christ is. I believe strongly that the misunderstanding of the truth and the reason why many Baptists today believe these false doctrines of dispensationalism is because they're not holding strong to the doctrine of the autonomy of the local church in fighting against the universal church doctrine. Now every independent fundamental Baptist preacher out there, at least that I know of, will tell you that they agree that there's no universal church for the most part, okay? And they'll give lip service about the autonomy of the local church. They'll tell you, yeah, the church is the local congregation, okay? There's no overarching hierarchy. We're not all just one universal body or anything like that. They would agree with what I said in the first part of this video, okay? They'll say, yes, the church is the local congregation. We believe in the local church. But then all of a sudden, when you start talking about the subjects of Bible prophecy and dispensations and things like that, all of a sudden it becomes the church this and the church that, referring to the church in a universal way. Let me give you a few examples. They'll say Christ will come to rapture the church. Now we know from 1 Thessalonians chapter four that the people who are in the rapture, the people who are taken out, who are both resurrected and then those which are alive and remain and who are caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air, those are those that believe that Jesus died and rose again according to verse 14 of that chapter. In other words, those that are saved. So to say that Christ comes back and raptures the church is quite an odd thing to say if you believe that the church is a local congregation and not all saved people. You see the problem? Or if you start preaching against Zionism, like I preach against Zionism, I don't believe that doctrine. I don't believe that the Jews are God's chosen people in the New Testament. They accuse that doctrine that Israel is all believers in the New Testament. They accuse that of teaching that the church has replaced Israel. So they create a straw man argument by assuming that this doctrine is Catholic replacement theology and they say, well the Bible never says the church replaces Israel. And I agree with that. The Bible doesn't say that. But I'll get a little bit more into that later and explain the connection between this false doctrine of the Catholic or the universal church and these other false doctrines. Right now the question should be asked, why all of a sudden when it comes to these particular subjects of dispensations and the rapture and all that kind of stuff which are all connected together, why do Baptist preachers start using the word church in the wrong context and start using it with the wrong meaning? Okay? And the answer is very simple. Because they don't get their doctrines from the Bible. They get them from commentaries and reference Bibles and study Bibles and theological books. One of the most well known is the Schofield Reference Bible. Now C.I. Schofield was a Presbyterian. Presbyterianism is a Protestant denomination that came out of the Roman Catholic Church. They believe in the universal church doctrine. So Schofield was one of those that believed that every saved person is the church which we've seen from the Bible is false. That's why he taught things like there's a distinction between Israel and the church and that the rapture is the taking up of the church. The Bible never says that when Christ returns he will resurrect and rapture the church. But that's what Schofield taught. The only reason why many Baptists, in fact most Baptists, will say stuff like that today is because they're not getting their doctrine of the preacher rapture and all that other stuff from the Bible. They're getting it from Schofield and John Nelson Darby and William Blackstone and Clarence Larkin and other Protestant theologians of the 19th and the 20th centuries who held to this universal church doctrine which we've seen is unbiblical. And that should really raise a red flag about whether these doctrines can be trusted because the whole system of dispensationalism and all the doctrines that come with it assume the existence of a universal church. If there is no universal church then all of that falls apart as I'm about to demonstrate. And the fact that many of the Baptist congregations, especially independent fundamental Baptists, F.B. will claim to believe the autonomy of the local church and then contradict themselves when it comes to these doctrines, I believe that that is a big part of why the older generation of churches are dying because they don't even have consistent doctrine which is based on the Bible. The Bible is consistent but all that nonsense of dispensationalism and all that isn't consistent. So firstly, the doctrine that there is such a thing as a church age, which mostly coincides with the so-called dispensation of grace, that is a false doctrine which is based on the belief that there is a universal church. You might often hear people say, we're living in the church age. And they'll say that age began in the book of Acts and lasts unto the rapture of the church from Christ's ascension to his second coming basically. Now this idea that there is such a thing as a church age ignores first of all the definition of the word church because remember, church is simply a congregation of believers. The Bible never uses it in a universal context and always talks about a local assembly. The dispensationalists claim that the church did not exist in the Old Testament but that's wrong because the Bible says in Acts 7.38, this is he that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the Mount Sinai and with our fathers who received the lively oracles to give unto us. So here Stephen is preaching and refers to the church in the wilderness at the time of Moses. 1,500 years earlier, he's talking about a church. Now that should create the question, if the church only began at the time of Christ or at the book of Acts, why does the Bible talk about a church in the Old Testament? Well, it's simple because the church didn't begin with the book of Acts because church simply means congregation. The dispensationalists complicate things but the definition of a church is very simple. If people are congregated together, it is a church. In the Old Testament, believers also congregated together and therefore there was a church in the Old Testament. What Acts 7 is referring to in particular is what is called the tabernacle of the congregation which is mentioned many times in the books of Moses such as in Numbers chapter 1 verse 1 where it says, And the Lord spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tabernacle of the congregation, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after their come out of the land of Egypt. So in the wilderness, there is a congregation according to the Old Testament. The New Testament calls it a church in the wilderness. Why? Because a church is a congregation. We've already seen that by comparing Psalm 22-22 with Hebrews 2-12. So if you just define church as the Bible defines it, we should understand that it's ridiculous to say that believers couldn't and didn't congregate to worship the Lord and hear the preaching of the word before the time of Christ. The Bible talks about believers doing that. The very first verse I quote in this video, Psalm 22-22, written a thousand years before Christ and yet it talks about singing unto the Lord in the midst of the congregation which is quoted in Hebrews 2 as the church. So was there a church at the time of Moses? Yes. And was there a church at the time of David when the book of Psalms was written? Yes. Or how about this example in Nehemiah chapter 8. It says in verse 1-4, And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the Watergate, and they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the Lord had commanded Israel. Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation, both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding upon the first day of the seventh month. And he read therein before the street that was before the Watergate from the morning until midday, before the men and the women, and those that could understand, and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law. And Ezra the scribe stood upon a pulpit of wood which they had made for their purpose, and beside him stood Mattathiah and Shema, and Aniah and Irijah, and Hociah and Masehah on his right hand, and on his left hand Padiah and Mishiah, and Mociah and Hashum, and Ashbedanah, Zechariah, and Meshulah. And then jumping down to verse 8 of Nehemiah chapter 8 it says, So they read in the book of the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading. So in the time of Nehemiah, which is still 450 years before Christ, the people gathered themselves together. It is called a congregation in verse 2, so a church. Ezra gets up on a pulpit and reads out of the law of God and then preaches and causes the sense to be known. That's literally the same thing as a New Testament church. It didn't begin at the time of Christ. The congregation gathering to listen to the preaching of God's word existed in the time of Moses. It existed in the time of David. It existed in the time of Ezra. And there's plenty of other examples. Just look up the word congregation in a concordance in the Bible and see how many times it talks about it in the Old Testament. I think there's something like 300 times that it mentions it in the Bible. It's not something that's new, that was just invented when Christ came. So there's no such thing as a church age, because it existed before Christ. In fact, the Bible says in Ephesians 3.21, So is there one age for the church? No, because glory is given to God in the church throughout all ages, the Bible says. That includes the Old Testament. That includes the tribulation and the kingdom of God. That includes after the rapture. As long as people have been gathering together in the name of God to worship and to learn his word, it is a church. There's not one particular age of the church. The only reason why they believe this nonsense is because they don't understand that the church is not every saved person in the New Testament, every Christian. It's a congregation, not every Christian. So the Protestants, C.I. Scofield, teach this nonsense because they believe in that universal church doctrine, which is false. Now, the second thing, which it seems is influenced by the universal church doctrine, is Zionism. Or that's the name that I give to the doctrine of many Christians who support the Jews and the state of Israel and claim that the Jews are still God's chosen people and we should bless them and help them and all that. However, the New Testament teaches that God's people are Christians and not the Christ rejecting, Christ hating Jews. The Bible teaches that any believer in Christ, whether Jew or Gentile, is of the Israel of God, is God's holy nation, is God's people. I'm not going to spend much time defending that in this video because I've made videos on that before and that's not the main point of this video. The point I want to make is to say that the Zionists will attack me and other fellow Baptists who hold to the same doctrine and they'll say, you're preaching replacement theology. The church has not replaced Israel. Well I agree, the church has not replaced Israel. And nothing I just said a moment ago about what I believe concerning the relation between Israel and the Jews and Christians and all that indicates that I believe that the church has replaced Israel. But the accusation that this doctrine is replacement theology is perpetuated by the acceptance of the term by other Baptists who believe the same thing but who don't understand what replacement theology is. So when somebody says, you're teaching replacement theology, they say, yeah, we do, but no you don't. That's a major problem because the older generation, Zionists, Baptists, know what replacement theology is but they misunderstand what it is that we're teaching. The new IFB apparently does not know what replacement theology is and therefore ignorantly accepts that term when in reality the teaching that Christians are God's people in the New Testament is not replacement theology. Replacement theology, also known as supersessionism, is a Catholic doctrine which teaches that the universal church has replaced the nation of Israel as God's chosen people. But of course in order to believe that you would have to believe in the universal church because it makes sense for a universal worldwide church to replace a whole nation. But it doesn't make sense to say that a local congregation, which can be as small as like three or four people, has replaced a whole nation. That doesn't make any sense. Especially when there are thousands of local congregations, local churches in the world. So I do not believe that the church has replaced Israel. And anybody who accuses me of believing that and then proceeds to try and refute that is committing a straw man fallacy because they are misrepresenting the position that I take and the doctrine that I believe. The question is not whether Israel is God's people. The question is, who is Israel in the New Testament? Well the scripture is saying in Romans chapter 9 verses 6 to 8, Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel which are of Israel, neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children, but in Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. So the Bible teaches that not everybody of Israel, so that would be those that are descended from the man Israel, those that are descended from Jacob, the Israelites, not all of them are Israel. Not everybody who is descended from Abraham after the flesh are the children of God according to this passage. Rather it's the children of the promise who are counted as the seed of Abraham. Or in Galatians 4 verse 28 it defines the children of promise as us Christians. Earlier in the book of Romans in chapter 2 it again says that those which are Jews outwardly and who are circumcised in the flesh are not true Jews, but only those which are circumcised in the heart. The Bible says of the Jews in John 8 that Abraham and God is not their father, but that they are the children of the devil. In Matthew 21 Jesus said the kingdom of God shall be taken from them and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. In Romans 2 it says that if they are not circumcised in the heart, they are not truly Jews. In Romans 9 it says they are not the children of promise, that they are not Israel, and the children of promise would be those that believe. So if they don't believe, they're not the seed of Abraham and they're not truly Israel according to Romans 9. In Romans 11 it says they've been blinded by God. In Galatians chapter 4 it says they've been cast out and will not inherit the promises made unto Abraham. But the Bible says that us as Christians are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise, Galatians 3.29 and also the latter portion of Galatians chapter 4. And it says also in Philippians 3.3 that we are their circumcision which worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. We are the circumcision, we are the Jews, we are Israel, we are God's people, we are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. That's what the Bible teaches, even if we're not descended from Israel after the flesh, we still are the inheritors of the promise, not the unbelieving Christ rejecting Jews. So the question is not has the church replaced Israel, the church is a congregation. It's not a nation. It's not every Christian. So yes, every Christian is God's people. Every Christian has replaced the unbelieving Jews. First Peter 2, 9 to 10 says that we are a holy nation. It says in time past we were not a people, but we are now the people of God. That's what the Bible teaches. But the dispensationalists try to make a distinction, a hard distinction between the church and Israel saying, well you've got to make sure not to confuse the church and Israel. Israel is not the church. And I agree for different reasons. I agree with that statement because they're in two entirely different categories. You can't say that there's a separation because first of all the church is a congregation and it existed in the Old Testament in the wilderness amongst the people of Israel. So the Old Testament refers to the congregation of Israel many times. That's the church of Israel. Second of all, in the New Testament every believer is Israel, but not every believer is the church. However, many of those in God's holy nation, which is Israel, are in a local church. So it's not even in the same category and yet the dispensationalists make a hard distinction between the two as if there's no mixing. And they do that because they don't understand that the church is not a worldwide thing. It's a congregation. Next there's the pre-trib rapture. As I mentioned earlier, all of a sudden when Baptists start talking about Bible prophecy and they start defending the false doctrine of the pre-trib rapture, it's Jesus will rapture the church or Jesus will come for the church. Hold on. The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 4 verses 14 to 17, For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with Him in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Now where in that passage does it say anything about the church? It doesn't. This is the main passage about the rapture in the New Testament. It says nothing about the church. It says those that believe in verse 14 will be brought with Jesus. It says the dead in Christ shall rise. So do we have to go to church to be in Christ? No. You know it's funny because earlier I was talking about the inconsistency of the beliefs of the old I.F.B. They'll sometimes use this Baptist's acronym as a description of what they believe, as a description of Baptist's distinctives and I made a video on that before and I believe all the points of that acronym, Baptists, okay I'm not going to list all what that is but one of them, I think it's the second, or the first S, is saved and baptized church membership. The church that I go to right now, I've heard my pastor say this many times that if you're going to join the local church you have to be baptized. So do you have to be baptized in order to be saved or in order to be raptured? No. Because they say well it's the rapture of the church and this ends the church age because the church is taken out of here. Well that's not true because regardless of whether or not you have been baptized and therefore added unto the church, if you are saved, meaning you have believed in Christ, you will be resurrected and raptured. And this idea that the rapture is taking up the church out of this world itself contributes to the false idea that the rapture takes place before the tribulation because they'll say at that point the church age ends, the church is taken out and only the Jews remain and they're the ones who go through the tribulation. And their proof of that is that the church is never mentioned in Revelation after chapter 3. So they say the book of Revelation does not concern the church but it rather concerns Israel and by that they mean Israel after the flesh. Well here is what it does say in Revelation, chapter 13 verse 7, talking about the beast. It says it was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them and power was given him over all kindreds and tongues and nations. So yeah it doesn't mention the church but it does talk about the saints being persecuted by the beast. And that argument is ridiculous anyway because in Revelation chapter 3 verse 9 that would be the last verse in Revelation that mentions the Jews and yet they say the tribulation is for the Jews. Now it's for Christians, see Revelation 12, 17, 13, 7, and 14, 12, it talks about those which have the testimony of Jesus, which have the faith of Jesus. They're the ones who are persecuted by Satan and the beast. But then they say, but the Bible never talks about the church in Revelation. Well yeah because I didn't say the church, I said believers, Christians go through the tribulation, not the Jews. The Bible never talks about the Jews in Revelation, it does talk about the saints, it does talk about those that have the faith of Jesus. By accusing me of saying that the church goes through the tribulation is by assuming that every Christian is part of the church. That's not what church means. Another reason why that makes no sense is because again, since church means congregation and the existence of the local congregation is in all ages as we saw in Ephesians 3.1, so even if all Christians were raptured out before the tribulation, that doesn't end the church because if any believing Jews in the tribulation met together, that would still be a church, okay? The church never ends, even at the rapture, okay? So you see how it's all related. These doctrines all coincide with each other and they're all rooted in the teachings of Protestants like the Presbyterian C.I. Schofield for example. That's why all of a sudden Baptist preachers who will talk about an autonomous local congregation, all of a sudden when they start talking about Bible prophecy, they switch from defining the church as a local congregation to defining it as all the saved, just for convenience. They don't have that consistent doctrine because they know that if the universal church doctrine isn't true, which it isn't, then there's no basis for this dispensationalist nonsense. Now since we've seen that the church is not all Christians worldwide, this whole dispensational system falls apart because if there's no universal church, there's no such thing as a church age. The church never ends at the rapture. There's no distinction between Israel and the church. There's no way to attack the sound doctrine that the unbelieving Jews are not God's people and there's much, much less of a basis and defense for the preacher rapture because all of these work in tandem with each other. Now there's other doctrines which I could talk about that are rooted in the misunderstanding of the word church, namely the confusion as to what the bride of Christ is. Now I don't want to go too in depth with that but the Bible says clearly in the book of Revelation that the bride of Christ is New Jerusalem. I made a video about New Jerusalem a few months ago. I recommend going and watching that and I proved that from the Bible in that video. But there's also the doctrine of ecumenicalism, of churches basically forgetting about all the doctrinal differences and things like that and joining up and yoking up with all kinds of cults and false churches and things like that and false prophets. It could also create a potentially corrupted view of what baptism does and several other things. So the universal church is a dangerous doctrine. It's a little leaven that can leaven the whole lump of doctrine. If you end up falling into this Catholic, Protestant nonsense, you're going to end up with an inconsistent, contradictory, unbiblical, manmade system of theology, particularly eschatology. We don't need this nonsense. It's not true. I hope you enjoyed this video. I tried to do the best I could to show beyond a shadow of a doubt that the church is not universal. That's why I'm not a Catholic. That's why I'm not a Protestant. That's why I'm a Baptist, a particularly independent fundamental Baptist. Even more particularly, I align with the new IFB because I don't believe in this dispensational preacher rapture and all that kind of stuff because it's not what the Bible teaches. So thank you, everybody, for watching. That's it for today. God bless you and goodbye.