The Lord Jesus is the Head of the Church, His body. The Head cannot be changed. So too the body must be unchangeable. The members, who govern and bear the body, must therefore also still be present.
The Lord gave His Church a fourfold priestly ministry of apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastors, to perfect the congregation,till we all have attained to the unity of the faith
This fourfold ministry is indicated by silhouettes in the Old Covenant as can gathered from Clause 49.
The Lord Jesus was the bearer of all four offices.
The fourfold ministry is based on the four character attributes or faculties of man, namely: the will, the phantasy-- imagination--,the understanding --intellect-- and the heart--affection--, feeling or sentiment. So we find that in the apostle the will comes to the fore in the prophet imagination; in the case of the evangelist understanding, and in the pastor affection.The apostles must govern the Church.
The Lord wants to perfect the faith of His children in the various Congregations with the services of the other ministers. So the prophets must instruct the Congregation in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They are also the mediums used by the Lord, to call His servants.
The evangelists assist the apostles in the preaching of the Gospel.
The pastors are required, to see to spiritual well-being of individuals in a given Congregation.
For the care of the poor the Congregation elects deacons.
Paul names the conditions, which they have to comply with, in order to be elected to their office. They are inducted in their office either by the apostles themselves or on their behalf.
Sisters of the Congregation can, in particulas, display affectionate devotion towards the sick.
In the beginning, the Congregation, equiped and governed in this way, waited for the personal return of the Lord according to His promise.
It is not permitted, to calculate on what day the second coming will take place. The Lord does, however, command us to be watchful and prepared, to go to meet the Bridegroom.
The Lord wants, us to know the signs of the times. It was necessary at the time, so that the contemporaries of the Lord would know, that the fulness of time had arrived, for the Lord to deliver the world. So too we must know the signs of the times, in order to know, that the Lord's day will soon be here.
Before the Lord comes, those sleeping in death will be raised first, but only, those that belong to Christ. Thereafter those faithful ones that are alive, and remain, will be glorified. They will be taken up together with the raised dead, to meet the Lord, and always be with Him.
The Bible teaches us of a first and a second resurrection. When the first resurrection takes place, the remainder of those resting in death will continue resting. The Lord Jesus was the firstfruit out of the dead, to rise with a glorified body. After His resurrection, the first to appear as a prize, which He had won from the dead, were the roused dead who were seen by the saints in Jerusalem.Thereafter, --now already more than 1900 years-- Paul says, those who belong to Christ will he resurrected, and then --that is after at least a 1000 years-the last judgement will follow.
After the thousand year Realm --Kingdom--the second resurrection will take place, and all will be judged to life or to the second death --everlasting damnation--; those sleeping in death after dying therefore neither enter heaven nor hell. It is through erroneous biblical translation, that we speak of hell, where in the original languages, in which the Bible was written--the 01d Testament in Hehrew. the New Testament in Greek--, the realm or world of the spirits, Scheol or Hades, is spoken of. --See the New English Bible--.The faithful dead are not yet in heaven, where God lives, but in paradise, the blessed part of the realrn of the spirits or the second heaven. The first heaven is Godts kingdom on earth; the third heaven is Godts abode --dwelling place--. Separated from paradise is the Gehenna, the place where the lost are punished. Tartarus is the abode of the devils.
The temple of Solomon was a silhouette of the whole kingdom of God.
The four sections:
A: The preaching of the Gospe1 to the Gentiles -unbelieving--.
B: Those who are already true believers on earth, with the cross of Christ, but also the cross of the Christian, where he must offer himself.
C: The second heaven or abode-- awelling place-- of the true --faithful-- believers sleeping in death, where the High Priest, Jesus, attends the altar of incense.
D: The third heaven, where God sits on the throne, and where Jesus Christ as High Priest entered with His blood. See Clause 19.
Clause 19. Only the High Priest, once a year, entered the Most Holy Place within the veil Ex.86,33 to free the hole nation of sin. He wore a breastplate with twelve precious stones, on which the names of the twelve tribes of Israel were engraved, thus representing the whole nation before God.
Just as Isaiah had already prophesied, the Lord Jesus would proclaim liberty to the captives.
After His death on the cross He did not ascend to heaven --John 20:l7--; He entered the prison, to preach the Gospel to the spirits, that they micht live according to God in the spirit.
It is for this reason that Paul also speaks of a Baptism for the dead-- 1 Cor.15:29--. We must, however, not be careless about our life on earth because of this possibility.
When the dead can still be baptised in the realm of the dead, they must be baptised with the aid of substitutes on earth, as the Lord had commanded that water is the external symbol of Baptism. Considering the possibility for the dead to be baptised, it follows, that they can also partake of Holy Communion-- Eucharist-with the aid of substitutes, because the Lord Himself prescribed bread and wine for the remembrance of His death. The Lord can also reveal, which of the dead from all the periods in the Church's history through the laying on of the hands may be included in the 144,000, who will follow the Lamb, wherever He goes.
In the beginning the Church possessed all these means of grace for her comfort. The Lord, however, warned, that man must not forsake that which He has ordained, and nevertheless we see decline and decay setting in. On account of pride a Babel --confusion, see Clause 11-- came about. Later the Bride completely loses her point of view, seeks protection from the world powers, and in the process gradually became the whore, sitting upon the beast. Instead of a holy, catholic, apostolic Church we see the body of Christ broken. The body of Christ we observe, has become a Babel.
Clause 11: The dascendants of Noah sinned again, so that God saparated them by confounding there language. Some of them, however, preserved the knowledge of God more or less pure
God still wants to save true believers out of this confusion,before His punishments descend upon humanity as the great tribulation--oppression-- .
Christiandom, will in general, not understand the signs of the times, and not allow themselves to be prepared for the Lordts second coming. Only the great tribulation --distress--, prophesied by the Lord Jesus, will make the true believers understand, that the time of judgement has come over the earth.God has permitted this great tribulation partly as punishment, because Christiandom does not want to confess itt's sins; and partly as proof of His love, for He still wants to save, those who wish to obey His warning voice: "Come out of her, My people, out of Babylon, that ye receive not of her plagues." Rev.18:5.
In the Word of God we read, how the great tribulation will reveal itself.
The warning voice, telling people to leave Babylon, comes from the Apostolic Church, which was established by God Himself in answer to the many prayers asking for a renewed pouring out of the Holy Spirit.This Church had it's origin in the seventh period of the history of the Church, in which the antichrist reveals himself. In this respect both phenomena are the seventh from Adam. --Clause 8--.
Clause 8. We find in the seventh generation from Adam --the sons of God and the children of men- a limit both in godliness --Enoch- as well as in ungodliness-Lamech Jude 74; Gen.5:24; Gen.4: 19-24.
The Apostolic Church is the Elijah of the New Testament, who would come to preach the unity of the Church.Thus it is also the John the Baptist of the last period, who warn Christiandom, to make straight the paths of the coming Lord.
See also
Clause 26.
Clause 26. Before
the Shiloh came, God sent a herald in accordance with the
prophecies of Isaiah and Malachi. In this herald, John the
Baptist, the prophecy of Malachi was only partially fulfilled, as
the day of the birth of the Lord Jesus was not the dreadful day,
but the commecement of the pleasant period of grace,in which God
wanted to reconcile the world to Himself.