Twelve, not Thirteen; Where is the Church???

 It has a great and high wall that has twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written on the gates which are of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel—on the east, three gates, and on the north, three gates, and on the south, three gates, and on the west, three gates. And the wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them are twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

Revelation 21:12-14 (LEB)

Prophets and dreamers have been leading people astray since the beginning, and we see this happening today, probably more than ever before, thanks to social media, television and the many platforms where anyone can voice their opinions. I realize many will say I am conducting the same sort of business by writing on these subjects. How can one sift through the millions of voices and find the truth? My suggestion is to follow the commandments of God as written in Scripture and let the Spirit of truth be the guide of all truth.

John 16:12–13 (LEB): ¹² I still have many things to say to you, but you are not able to bear them now. ¹³ But when he—the Spirit of truth—comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will proclaim to you the things to come.

A similar message is given to us later by John:

1 John 2:27 (LEB): ²⁷ And as for you, the anointing which you received from him remains in you, and you do not have need that anyone teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you reside in him.

Christianity has all but collapsed in the twenty-first century due to the thousands of sects and false teachings. Is this the great apostasy, or “falling away” that Paul spoke about? I think that this event happened hundreds of year ago, but there is always a remnant of people staying true to the Creator God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

One of the biggest dreams from false prophets is the theology of dispensationalism. This is where people believe that we are in the “age of grace” where the commandments of God are irrelevant, and the only teaching we should follow is that of the letters of apostle Paul that he wrote to assemblies of believers in the first century. This false teaching tells us that the rest of the bible is written for the “Jews” and all we have to do is say we believe in Jesus with our lips. It really follows the Santa Claus model, “just believe” and you will get your presents.

There really should be more evidence than Paul’s letters if there are really two separate peoples of God, Israel and the Church, where the church is raptured and taken to a galaxy far away while Israel is “left behind”. People also like to use this verse in Revelation to prove the rapture theory:

Revelation 4:1–2 (LEB): 4 After these things I looked, and behold, an open door in heaven, and the former voice that I had heard like a trumpet speaking with me was saying, “Come up here and I will show you the things which must take place after these things.” ² Immediately I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one was seated on the throne.

John is given a vision of heaven on the things to come in the first century, and in 2023 this supposedly translates to a rapture of the church. These are dreamers that are fabricating these theologies, and thousands, if not millions, believe it without ever studying for themselves, or asking for the Spirit of truth.

Deuteronomy 13:1–4 (LEB): “If a prophet stands up in your midst or a dreamer of dreams and he gives to you a sign or wonder, ² and the sign or the wonder comes about that he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods (those whom you have not known), and let us serve them,’ ³ you must not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer, for Yahweh your God is testing you to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all of your heart and with all of your inner self. ⁴ You shall go after Yahweh your God, and him you shall revere, and his commandment you shall keep, and to his voice you shall listen, and him you shall serve, and to him you shall hold fast.

“For Yahweh your God is testing you to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all of your heart and with all of your inner self“. This means these false teachings are built into the system by God, so that anyone who hates the instructions of God, does not want to learn the truth or take time to seek God, is able to parrot the dreamers and feel good about themselves while driving down the road of destruction.

A question arises if Paul is the only person we are to listen to as the modern day church. Why do the foundations of the new Jerusalem only have twelve foundations of the apostles and not thirteen?

Revelation 21:9–14 (LEB): ⁹ And one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me, saying, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” ¹⁰ And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and lofty mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, ¹¹ that has the glory of God. Its radiance is like a precious stone, something like a jasper stone, shining like crystal. ¹² It has a great and high wall that has twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written on the gates which are of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel—¹³ on the east, three gates, and on the north, three gates, and on the south, three gates, and on the west, three gates. ¹⁴ And the wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them are twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

I would think that there would be a “Paul” foundation stone if the “Church” was a separate group of people who are to forsake God’s commandments and follow only the teachings of Paul. There should also be a “Church gate”. Of course, I don’t believe Paul was teaching anything false or that he would agree with the theology of dispensationalism created from his letters by “unstable, ignorant” people. Even Peter tells us this will happen.

2 Peter 3:14–17 (LEB): ¹⁴ Therefore, dear friends, because you are waiting for these things, make every effort to be found at peace, spotless and unblemished in him. ¹⁵ And regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as also our dear brother Paul wrote to you, according to the wisdom that was given to him, ¹⁶ as he does also in all his letters, speaking in them about these things, in which there are some things hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, as they also do the rest of the scriptures. ¹⁷ Therefore, dear friends, because you know this beforehand, guard yourselves so that you do not lose your own safe position because you have been led away by the error of lawless persons.

Lawless people are not the ones breaking the speed limit in this case. “Lawless” in this context means no regard for God’s instructions. The Greek word, ἄθεσμος, translated to lawless in English, is defined as follows:

ἄθεσμος, lawless, ignoring the (divine) ordinances.

Alexander Souter, A Pocket Lexicon to the Greek New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1917), 7.

I have shared this diagram before showing the diagram of the theology of dispensationalism:

“Rightly dividing the word of truth” is the cornerstone phrase for this theology, and dispensationlists will say “rightly divide” anytime someone mentions the words of Jesus, John, or anyone else in the Bible that tells us to keep the commandments of God or casts doubts on the viability of dispensationalism. The problem with using this one statement from a letter written by Paul to Timothy as the cornerstone to bat down any nay-sayers is that it is translated differently than “rightly divide” in many Bible translations.

2 Timothy 2:15 (LEB): ¹⁵ Make every effort to present yourself approved to God, a worker having no need to be ashamed, guiding the word of truth along a straight path.

I wrote a recent blog post on this subject called, Dividing God’s Word is Risky Business. Paul also told Timothy many other things that dispensationlists must not consider, or “divide” out of their theology.

2 Timothy 3:14–17 (LEB): ¹⁴ But you continue in the things which you have learned and are convinced of, because you know from whom you learned them, ¹⁵ and that from childhood you have known the holy writings that are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶ All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, ¹⁷ in order that the person of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Earlier in this letter to Timothy, Paul actually tells Timothy to follow the commandments of God. Unfortunately, people hate the commandments of God so much that they are not inquisitive about these verses at all.

2 Timothy 3:1–9 (LEB): 3 But know this, that in the last days difficult times will come, ² for people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ hardhearted, irreconcilable, slanderous, without self-control, savage, with no interest for what is good, ⁴ traitors, reckless, conceited, loving pleasure rather than loving God, ⁵ maintaining a form of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid these people. ⁶ For from these are those who slip into houses and captivate foolish women loaded down with sins, led by various kinds of desires, ⁷ always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. ⁸ And just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these oppose the truth, people corrupted in mind, disqualified concerning the faith. ⁹ But they will not progress to a greater extent, for their folly will be quite evident to everyone, as also the folly of those two was.

Paul starts out with a summary of the ten commandments that people will disregard in the future and then compares them to Jannes and Jambres, who also opposed Moses. These two were the sons of Balaam. All of this is essentially a hidden code today, but would have been plain instruction to Timothy. He is comparing Moses to the truth. The law of God is the truth. Yeshua, called Jesus in Greek, is the truth manifested in human form because he is the Word of God. He never negated the written word, he embodied it.

So why is this block of letters written by Paul to some churches in the old world used so often to distort the truth? Why didn’t God have Paul write clearly so a child today could not distort or be ignorant about what he is saying? It is to give you, the reader a comfortable way out of regarding God’s instructions. It is how God works. If one really loves God they will seek Him and want to do what he says to do. There are cold (unbelievers), hot (believers) and lukewarm (those in a delusion that believe they can do whatever they want to in the name of grace).

Revelation 3:14–19 (LEB): ¹⁴ “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: “This is what the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the originator of God’s creation, says: ¹⁵ ‘I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! ¹⁶ Thus, because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am about to vomit you out of my mouth! ¹⁷ Because you are saying, “I am rich, and have become rich, and I have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked, ¹⁸ I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire, in order that you may become rich, and white clothing, in order that you may be clothed and the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed, and eye salve to smear on your eyes, in order that you may see. ¹⁹ As many as I love, I reprove and discipline. Be zealous, therefore, and repent!

Repenting is turning away from sin and sin is defined as breaking God’s commandments. Study these subjects diligently because it is very important. Repent and believe the gospel!

Photo by Thor Alvis on Unsplash