Jim,
I believe that there will once again be water baaptism in the Tribulation, and here are my reasons for this belief.
We are presently living in the dispensation of grace. The UNprophesied dispensation of God's grace. We know that when this age of grace is over, that Christ will come, and the Body of Christ will be "caught up" to be with Him in the air, as taught in 2 Thessalonians.
We know that when God set Israel aside, in Acts 28:28, that this is a temporary thing, as there are promisses to be fulfilled concerning Israel; i.e., that they will be "an holy nation of priests that will bring all other nations to God", that they will finally accept Jesus Christ as their Messiah, and that they WILL inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Israel will once again become the channel of God's blessing toward the world. Since the Kingdom program is being held in abeyance at the present time, we can be sure that the moment that the Body of Christ is taken up to be with Christ in the air, the Kingdom program will begin immediately, with the "time of Jacob's trouble", the great tribulation beginning. Since the time of Jacob's trouble is connected with the Kingdom program, we can know that the Kingdom program, and the Gospel of the Kingdom are once again active, and the dispensation of the Law, with Christ as Messiah has been reinstated, after being held in abeyance for so long.
It is a part of the Kingdom program, and the dispensation of the Law, for faith and works to work together to achieve salvation in Christ. One of the works in the Kingdom church, as Christ taught the children of Israel, is water baptism for the remission of sin.
There is a very interesting study on all of this at the website of the Berean Bible Society. They are a very good dispensational site that teaches the word, rightly divided.
Here is the link: http://www.bereanbiblesociety.org/articles
Scroll down to "Studies in Revelation", and read the studies from the one dated earliest, forward to the latest.
This helped me a lot.
Darryl |
