The Common Thread

The Common Thread

By Richard P. Joseph

My entire life I have been, and still do, hear sermons concerning our conduct as Christians.
Our behavior is certainly a huge part of our faith and should never be minimized but after
much study I have found that it really isn’t the most common thread in our New Testament.
There seems to be an overarching theme that runs the length of our New Testament that
most preachers don't even realize is present.

Matthew 3:7-12, John the Baptist lays the foundation for the entire mission of Christ.  

7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to
them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Therefore
bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves,
‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise
up children to Abraham. 10 The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every
tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

11 “As for me, I baptize you [g]with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is
mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you [h]with the Holy
Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His
threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with
unquenchable fire.”

John the Baptist starts right off by running the Jewish leadership over roughshod.  He
straightway warns them of impending judgement and puts them in the category of snakes
who are attempting to hide from that judgement. He lets them know that their Jewishness
cannot save them and that God can raise up stones (gentiles) to take their place.  He then
tells them that the axe (judgement) is now laid to the root of the problem and there is a day
of reckoning fast approaching. The messiah has arrived and established a common thread
of a resurrection and a judgement at his second coming which was soon to follow.  This is
the theme that runs the entire length of the New Testament and dominates and controls the
entire mood of every writer. Jesus constantly proclaimed that the kingdom of heaven was at
hand.

Matthew10:7  And as you go, [a]preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven [b]is at hand.’

He did not come to deliver a new philosophy on peace and love although real peace and real
love are important items in it.  What he really was selling was that there was going to be a
catastrophic shift in cosmology. God was about to abolish his connection to only one nation
and open it up to the world.  On page 242 of The Parousia by James Stuart Russell he sums
things up with this statement:

The ‘old covenant’ or economy is represented as ‘decaying, waxing old, and ready to vanish
away,’-that is to say, the Mosaic dispensation was about to be abolished, and to be
superseded by the Christian dispensation.  

Russell spends several pages explaining this covanental shift.  This is the common thread
that runs the entire length of the New Testament.  It never talks about the end of the physical
world, it talks about a shift from the old heavens and earth to a new heavens and earth.  And
this shift was to be concluded within one generation of time.

Judaism has run its course.  It served God’s purpose but because of their unfaithfulness to
him, the kingdom was being taken away and given over to the church (all those that leave
the world system and enter into faith in Jesus Christ).  This transition (millennium) took place
between the death of Christ on the cross and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish
economy. Those that fought to hold onto the old system (even those that believed in Christ)
actually caused such a ruckus that it forced the apostles to call for the first ever counsel of
apostles.  This counsel produced a decredal document that ended the judaism conflict that
plagued the early church (Acts 15).

So what is the point of this article?  It is a challenge for you to re-read the entire New Testament with a new frame of mind.  We often read the bible with the “pastor’s” frame of mind that he indoctrinated us with. We need to read it with a historic frame of mind where the context controls the outcome.  Most people think the bible is some sort of book of promises as if it were written by a genie. Although there are promises in the bible, that is not what it is about. It is about a covenant between us and God.  The New Testament is about that shift in covenants and specifically about a fast approaching judgement and resurrection which would occur at the presence, or coming of Christ to consummate it. This is an exciting story that most, and I mean most, people do not even know exists.  The messiah appeared at the fullness of time (end of the Mosaic age) to put his enemies under his feet and to fulfill all things thus ushering in the new covenant sealed with his blood. There is no future “end of the world”, there was only the end of the old age and the dawn of a new age (the age of the eternal kingdom of Jesus Christ) where we now have work to do. No time to sit around and wait for something that is never going to happen. We need to subdue this earth with the gospel of truth and justice. I highly encourage you to get the book “The Parousia” (http://www.preterist.org) which was published in 1887.  This will open your eyes up to something that most people have been blind to for most of their lives.