Kingdom of God – Anthony G. Flood

“At the end of the day”: Trump’s compromise

Donald Trump on abortion: 'It should be the law of the state' “The states will determine by vote, or legislation, or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land—in this case [abortion], the law of the state. Many states will be different. Many states will have a different number of weeks … at the end of the day it is all about the will of the people.” Donald Trump, Truth Social, today. (Emphasis added.)

“At the end of the day”? Say, when the sun goes down (as I once heard Bill O’Reilly quip)?

Trump’s context is, of course, the U.S. politics and Constitution, not eschatology. The end of the day (ἡμέρας) of man (ἀνθρωπίνης) (1 Corinthians 4:3), every detail of which having been ordained to come to pass (Ephesians 1:11), will inaugurate the day (ἡμέρας) of Christ (Χριστοῦ) (Philippians 1:6; not the Day of the Lord).

In that day, co-extensive with the manifest Kingdom of God, there will be The mercy of God and the unborn child - St George Orthodox Ministry no exceptions for any species of homicide. The penalty will be death (Acts 5:1-11; the Acts period being a foretaste of the Kingdom[1]). God’s will, not “the people’s,” will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10).

Note

[1] See my “Sellers’s Eschatology: Some Distinctives,” June 7, 2020.

Sellers’s Baptismology, Part 7: The Apostles, Governing the Tribes of the Mediatorial Nation Israel, Will Identify the Nations with Christ

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Baptism as identification also has a future application: the so-called “great commission.”[1] In the KJV of Matthew 28:19 Jesus’ command is rendered this way:

Go (πορευθέντες, poreutentes) ye therefore, and teach (μαθητεύσατε, mathēteusate) all nations, baptizing (βαπτίζοντες, baptizontes) them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Sellers notes three things. The first is that Jesus was speaking to the eleven apostles: this is the apostles’ commission under the conditions of the future manifest Kingdom of God, not ours in the dispensation of grace. The second is that those to be identified are nations, not individuals. The third is that imperative mood in the Greek qualifies the verb “to teach,” not “to go.” Let’s take the last point first.

Jesus doesn’t direct His apostles to go anywhere: poreutentes is a participle form of πορεύω; if Jesus wanted to command them to go, the inspired writer could have written πορεύου (poreuou), the imperative form, but he didn’t. He wrote πορευθέντες (poreuthentes):

It was to these men just before His arrest that the Lord Jesus said, “You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and appoint you that you should go and bring forth fruit” (John 15:16). He did not tell them when or where they should go, but they knew from His words that in due time they would be going. After His death, burial and resurrection, He took up the same theme again by saying “having gone” or “going then.” This is one word in the Greek (poreuthentes). It is a participle which is an auxiliary to the main verb which is matheteusate (disciple). He did not say “Go” or “Go ye,” as many wish that He had and finish up putting these words into His mouth.

Continue reading “Sellers’s Baptismology, Part 7: The Apostles, Governing the Tribes of the Mediatorial Nation Israel, Will Identify the Nations with Christ”

Otis Q. Sellers’s Ecclesiology and Eschatology: An Overview, Part III

Otis Q. Sellers, 1921, the year he attended Moody Bible Institute.

[See Part I, and Part II for notes documenting points this three-part dogmatic summary makes. It was written for those interested in “the big picture” whose details are found in previous posts.—A.G.F.]

“And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together . . . .” Isaiah 40:6

All flesh has not yet seen the glory of the Lord together. One day they will, however, and that prophecy, according to Otis Q. Sellers, is the theme of the Bible: divine terrestrial rule, prophesied from Genesis 1 through Revelation 22.

By “rule” Sellers did not mean merely God’s ceaseless upholding of creation, but His injection of Himself into the flow of human history in a manifest way.

Jesus will inaugurate His rule from His throne, not from earth, His footstool (Isaiah 66:1, Acts 7:49). He’ll do that for centuries before returning to earth “in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thessalonians 1:8) and then continuing to reign for a thousand years. He’ll be personally present (parousia) with believers, present because of Who He is and What He is.

That’s the Millennium. We’re living premillennially, as will the denizens of the future manifest Kingdom, which is the divine dispensation that will follow the present one of grace and precede the Day of the Lord when Christ will descend from His heavenly throne to crush a rebellion against that Kingdom. Sellers wished he had grasped the truth of the pre-advent (or premillennial) Kingdom much earlier than he did.

The Kingdom—for whose advent we pray in “the Lord’s Prayer”—is future to us, but its initial centuries will be in the past of Christ’s Second Advent. That is, there will be a premillennial Kingdom. Continue reading “Otis Q. Sellers’s Ecclesiology and Eschatology: An Overview, Part III”

Otis Q. Sellers on ἐκκλησία, Part 6: the Kingdom (governmental) significance of qahal and ekklēsia

Previous installments: Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Centuries before Jesus told His disciples (almost certainly in Aramaic) that he would build of himself his ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia),[1] that word was familiar to Hellenophone Israelites exiled in Alexandria, for they used the Septuagint (hereafter, LXX), a third-century BC Greek translation of the Old Testament. The Jewish diaspora used the LXX wherever Greek was the lingua franca.

Christians who read “church” (i.e., the religious society they belong to) into the New Testament should consider that ekklēsia translated the Hebrew word קהל (qahal).[2] The Holy Spirit, Sellers notes:

inspired the writer of Hebrews to use ekklēsia as a rendering for qahal in Hebrews 2:12. [“Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church (ἐκκλησίας, ekklēsias) will I sing praise unto thee.”] In ancient Israel, the word qahal was always used of companies, large or small, that had a position out of God. The “great qahal” which Christ promised to build “out of himself” will be composed of every public servant in Israel. This waits for the coming of the Kingdom of God.

But the use of ekklēsia as a governmental term preceded the Septuagint’s translators by at least three centuries. Continue reading “Otis Q. Sellers on ἐκκλησία, Part 6: the Kingdom (governmental) significance of qahal and ekklēsia”

Otis Q. Sellers on ἐκκλησία, Part 4: The Rock and His Substance

Otis Q. Sellers (1901-1992), in 1922 the year he studied at Moody Bible Institute

Previous installments: Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

When Jesus came to Cesarea Phillipi with His twelve disciples (μαθητaς, mathētas) (which included Judas), whom He named apostles (ἀποστόλου ὠνόμασεν, apostolous ōnomasen (Luke 6:13), He first asked them, “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? (Matthew 16:13), and they gave various answers.

Then He narrowed His interest: “Whom do you (ὑμεῖς, humeis)[1] say I am?” (Matthew 16:15). In the next verse we have Peter’s answer:

You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Peter was an individual. For whom else did he speak? Sellers deduced from other places in Scripture that ten besides himself agreed, but

there was one, Judas Iscariot, who deep within himself did not agree. This was not his confession of faith. And in view of this, the reply of the Lord is made in an especially guarded manner. He speaks directly to Peter, but each man can include himself in or count himself out. He answers Peter by saying: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven.” Matthew 16:17[2]

That is, the truth Peter spoke

did not come to them from any human source, previous learning, aptitude, or personal ability. Neither did it arise out of race or nationality. It had come to them from the Father in heaven, even as John later would say: “He that believeth that Jesus is the Christ is generated (γεγέννηται, gegennētai) of God. 1 John 5:1[3]

Continue reading “Otis Q. Sellers on ἐκκλησία, Part 4: The Rock and His Substance”

Otis Q. Sellers on ἐκκλησία, Part 2: the Kingdom dimension

Otis Q. Sellers (1901-1992) in his library/recording studio (late ’70s/early ’80s)

We continue to arrange Sellers’s teachings on ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia).

The word “does not mean ‘church,’” Sellers insists, “no matter what definition is given to this term.” The facts adduced in the preceding post “are generally known, but they have been misconstrued by many, and probably will continue to be until His lightnings enlighten the world (Psalm 97:4),” that is, until the Kingdom comes.

The exalted meaning of “out-called” is degraded and stultified so that it can be used to signify something that we are today. They say that since the followers of Christ have been called out of the world, this makes us the out-called ones. All this is in spite of the fact that Jesus Christ said of His own:

I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. John 17:15

They illustrate this by saying that Israel is called “the ekklēsia in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38), declaring that this was because they had been called out of Egypt. These are not the facts in the case of Stephen’s declaration, as will be shown later.[1]

Sellers had nothing but disdain for what churchmen have made of this term:

I suppose that the most prevalent error in Christendom today is the idea that when the Lord Jesus said: “Upon this rock I will build My ekklēsia” (Matthew 16:18), that He was speaking of the great mixture of organized religion that travels under the canopy which today is called “the church.” . . .

In spite of the attempts to prove otherwise, the word “church” comes from the Latin word for “circle,” and it is from this that we get our English word “circus.” So today when we see the pretentious parades and the religious extravaganzas that are put on display for all to see, we are convinced that the word “circus” fits it to quite a degree of exactitude. If I were any part of this great three-ring American religious circus, I would hang my head in shame. But, thank God, from all this I have been delivered and separated. I consider all of this highly successful religious activity to be little more than men putting on the “form of Godliness, but denying the power thereof,” as Paul said would characterize men in the concluding days of this Dispensation of Grace (2 Timothy 3:5).

In other words, the last thing Sellers was going to do was to read the manmade societies of today, especially any to which he may have belonged or in which he was raised, back into the Acts period.

So, what does ekklēsia mean? Continue reading “Otis Q. Sellers on ἐκκλησία, Part 2: the Kingdom dimension”

Otis Q. Sellers on ἐκκλησία: his most distinctive theological distinctive? Introduction to a series.

When people first encounter Otis Q. Sellers’s writings, they learn he was virtually alone in holding that God’s global reign, the Kingdom for the coming of which He taught His disciples to pray, will be both future and premillennial.

That is, Christ’s “second coming,” His return to tabernacle among us again, to be present (παρουσία, parousia) because of who He is and what He is for a thousand years (the Millennium), is not His next move.[1] He will return before that Millennium but after that Kingdom has been operation.

His next move is the inauguration of His Kingdom (βασιλεία, basileia) on the Day of Christ (Χριστοῦ, Christou) (Philippians 1:6, 10), characterized by the Second, post-Pentecost Coming of the Holy Spirit.

After centuries of divine government, the Holy Spirit will lift His restraints to test all who have been living under it. He will permit a revolt (ἀποστασία, apostasia) (2 Thessalonians 2:1-3), which will initiate a time of pressure, testing, or “tribulation” (θλῖψις, thlipsis) for subjects of Israel’s restored Kingdom.

At His coming, Christ will crush that rebellion, marking the great and notable Day of the Lord (Κυρίου, Kyriou) (1 Thessalonians 5:2-5; Acts 2:20), the end of Israel’s 70 weeks (Daniel 9:27).

But that’s future. In the present, Christians work out their salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12), not only before Christ’s Parousia, but also before the coming of His Kingdom (no matter how soon it may come).

Almost without exception, Christians do this as members of societies called “churches.” Continue reading “Otis Q. Sellers on ἐκκλησία: his most distinctive theological distinctive? Introduction to a series.”

Earth: Our future home when His Kingdom comes

Otis Q. Sellers (1901-1992) in his library/recording studio on the second floor of his home, 339 South Orange Drive, Los Angeles

The conclusion of our 13-part series on Otis Q. Sellers’s study of the Hebrew nephesh and the Greek psyche, traditionally translated “soul” in English-language Bibles, is that the soul doesn’t “go” anywhere upon death: the person with whom the soul is identical will be resurrected on earth when God assumes sovereignty, that is, when His will is being done there as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10):

But one day your soul—you—will be brought back to life, resurrected; if, while you were a living soul, you believed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, you will enjoy eonian life (life flowing out of Him; John 3:16) as a subject of the Kingdom of God once He assumes sovereignty. Or you will be alive on that glad day. Either way, your future home is here, on earth. (Anthony G. Flood, “Summing Up Sellers on the Soul: Part XIII,” April 1, 2022)

Sellers had a lot to say about the latter topic. Earth is the venue of the promised and prophesied Kingdom of God. Personal circumstances, however, permit me only to reproduce his words, not comment on his thoughts on this topic. I feel bad about such “cheating”; I hope to be able to make up for that in the future.

For many centuries men have been guilty of discounting or ignoring every declaration that God has made as to the glorious future of the earth. It seems they have been afraid to declare what God has said for fear that men might be attracted to the earth and lose interest in the traditional heaven of hymnology. To them, this planet has no future but to be burned up. In fact, this is a vital principle in one great theological system. It teaches that the time will come when this planet will have ceased to exist, and all mankind will be either in Heaven or Hell. . . .

The objective study of the Word of God is sure to bring the conviction that all of God’s purposes in relationship to man are in some way related to the earth. All the glorious promises of the Bible have the earth as their subject. The earth has a glorious future, and in its future we will have a part.

The first stage of Earth’s glory will begin when God assumes sovereignty, takes to Himself His great power, and governs this planet and all who are upon it. And since Heaven is His throne and the earth is His footstool, we can rest assured that His government will be from the throne and not from the footstool. The redemption, restoration, and renewal of the earth is not in any way related to Jesus Christ coming back again. It is not preceded by the Great Tribulation; and it is not introduced by Armageddon, as so many dispensers of the gospel of fear and frightfulness would have us believe. It could begin at any moment. There is no event that precedes it.

Otis Q. Sellers, “God’s Earth,” Seed & Bread, 70. (Undated, but late ’70s.)

Otis Q. Sellers, Gabriel Monheim, Michael Walko, Los Angeles, December 21st or 22nd, 1973

. . . the first great declaration in the Word (excluding Psalm 25:13) concerning man’s future home is that, if he waits upon the Lord, he will have a place and enjoy a portion in the earth. This declaration is immediately repeated in the same Psalm.

For yet a little while and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be. But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. Psalm 37:10-11

These verses with the one that precedes them emphatically declare the fate of the wicked and the future of the righteous. Evildoers will be cut off; but the meek shall have a place and enjoy a portion in the earth, and in the abundance of peace they will find delight.

Otis Q. Sellers, “Inheriting the Earth, Seed & Bread, 73. (Undated, but late ’70s.) Continue reading “Earth: Our future home when His Kingdom comes”

The Maverick Workmanship of Otis Q. Sellers: Highlights

Periodically I need to step back from the billboard of my studies of independent Bible teacher Otis Q. Sellers (1901-1992) and survey that big picture, reviewing the salient points of his teaching, all of which are being sourced for the growing manuscript, Maverick Workman: How Otis Q. Sellers Broke with the Churches, Discovered the Premillennial Kingdom, and Embodied Christian Individualism. One hundred two years and seven days ago, that is, on November 23, 1919, Sellers received Christ as His savior. What he did with from that point onward is the book’s subject.

By “independent” I mean he wasn’t affiliated with any church after 1932, the year he left Fifth Avenue Baptist Church in Newport, Kentucky which, in the middle of the Great Depression, he had served as pastor for four years. He broke with them over the meaning of βαπτίζω (baptízō), the Greek word that every English-language New Testament transliterates as “baptism,” but never translates. After painstaking study, he concluded neither he nor anyone else had the authority to bring about the reality to which the water ritual of “baptism” referred, namely, “an identification amounting to a merger.” He could no longer, with integrity, subscribe to Baptist theology.

The home of Otis Q. Sellers and family, Fort Thomas, KY, 1932

Later, and by similar reasoning, Sellers reached another conclusion no less radical: not only that “church” is a bad translation of ἐκκλησία (ekklesia)—nothing new there—but also that this governmental term pertains to God’s purposes establishing His Kingdom, which Jesus Christ announced during his earthly ministry, but suspended at the inception of the current dispensation of grace (Ephesians 3:2).

Sellers’s studies convinced him that although the societies we call churches abound—they are among the institutional fixtures of the past two millennia—the meaning of ekklesia does not apply to any of them. There is a diversity of churches today, to be sure, and you may join any of them or not, he held, but none has the authority of an “out-positioned one” or ekklesia. Christians misidentify themselves as out-positioned, and this is the root of all “ecclesiastical” evil and controversy. “Out-positioned” is what Christians were from Acts 2 until Acts 28:28 and will be again when God resumes His Kingdom purposes. Or so is the conclusion his studies brought him to.

Today’s churches have evolved according to the demands and logic of human, not divinely instituted, organizations. Their members may be generated of God, but only as individuals. The societies they form cannot reflect the spirit of their members. As corporations, however, they have no standing before God; their data are primarily of historical, sociological, cultural, and esthetic, and only secondarily of biblical-theological interest.

Continue reading “The Maverick Workmanship of Otis Q. Sellers: Highlights”

Otis Q. Sellers: The Autodidact Who Returned ad fontes

From the Renaissance humanists the Reformers borrowed a motto: “Ad fontes!,” that is, “[Back] to the sources or fountains of truth.” The sources were texts, the Greek and Roman classics for the former, the Bible for the latter.

The phrase comes from Psalm 42:1, or rather from Jerome’s Latin translation of the Hebrew for his Vulgate edition of the Bible:

Quemadmodum desiderat cervus ad fontes aquarum, ita desiderat anima mea ad te Deus.

As the New King James Version renders it:

As the deer pants for the water (מָ֑יִם, mayim) brooks (אֲפִֽיקֵי, ha-pi-que), so pants my soul for You, O God.

“To be short of breath” or “to pant” renders the Hebrew תַּעֲרֹ֥ג (ta-a-rog), which Jerome represented by desiderare: to desire, wish for, long for. It refers to a want or desire that induces gasping, breathlessness.

The psalmist’s desire is, figuratively, for a source of water (ad fontes aquarum). Thirst is symptomatic of a lack, and God is the divine analogate of the thirst-quenching brook, the supplier of the spiritual hydration we need at our core.

Jesus Christ spoke of Himself that way. He promised that

… whosoever drinks of the water (ὕδωρ, hudor; whence our “hydration”) that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. John 4:14

Babbling brooks extinguish the thirst of deer whose throats will again dry up. Jesus’ quenching of spiritual thirst, however, is a gift of a spring of water (ὕδωρ) that wells up (ἁλλομένου, allomenon) into life. What kind of life? Not “eternal” in the sense of “timeless,” but dynamically outflowing (αἰώνιον, aionian).[1] Otis Q. Sellers’s research sheds light: Continue reading “Otis Q. Sellers: The Autodidact Who Returned ad fontes”