All scripture references are from the New King James Version

• God’s People are those who are in christ and have the holy spirit; an eschatological community, awaiting the fullness at the second coming of christ
  • The main storyline throughout the Scriptures is God creating a people in the earth as his dwelling place.‘I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the LORD your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. (Ex. 6:7)Then I will sow her for Myself in the earth, And I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy; Then I will say to those who were not My people, ‘You are My people!’ And they shall say, ‘You are my God!’ ” (Hos. 2:23)

    “Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion! For behold, I am coming and I will dwell in your midst,” says the Lord. (Zech. 2:10)

    And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. (Rev. 21:3)

  • Through the salvation of Christ, initiated by the Father, and the giving of the Spirit, this people of God is formed and the promises and plans of God are accomplished in an eschatological fashion.
    • The Holy Spirit is central to this plan and provides evidence and is the sustainer of the Christian hope and future.In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory. (Eph. 1:13-14)
    • Furthermore, the Holy Spirit brings together and builds up the people of God as they await the fullness. God’s promises have been initiated but are not yet fulfilled. Salvation and redemption are on a continuum that culminates at the return of Christ, the eradication of all wickedness from the earth, the resurrection, and the new heaven and new earth.For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. (1 Cor. 15:25-26) 
  • Apostolic theology is eschatological. For, the people of God which (was once defined as Israel) is now defined as those who are in Christ, having the Holy Spirit. This entrance into the new covenant marks the beginning of the end of the age. Without the Holy Spirit, living in such an eschatological reality would be impossible, as it is the Spirit who provides evidence of the promises of God and brings to pass individual and corporate transformation of the people of God into the image of Christ between his First and Second Coming.
    • Salvation is seen as a past, present, and future event. Believers are saved (justification), are being saved (sanctification), and will be saved (glorification).Sarah Harding writes in Paul’s Eschatological Anthropology: The Dynamics of Human Transformation, “In the resurrection of Christ, the apostle recognized the event that marked the approach of the telos, implying that the end time had been inaugurated . . . However, simultaneously he recognized that the old aeon continued to exert a hold over the cosmos. Consequently, the apostle reconfigured his eschatological views by introducing an additional third, intermediate, aeon between the old and new aeons. The presence of this overlap of aeons. The presence of this overlap of aeons signifies an inaugurated eschatology and splinters history into a “past,” “present,” and future.” Those who respond in faith to the Christ event are transferred to the dominion of the Holy Spirit and anticipate the future; nonbelievers continue to be dominated by sin and remain situated in a past that is fading away.” Harding also writes, “Believers participate in the new aeon heralded in by the Holy Spirit (Gal. 3:26-27; 2 Cor. 5:17), and are “led by the Spirit” (Gal. 5:18) as they anticipate Christ’s parousia when they shall become “citizens of heaven” (Phil. 3:20)”¹For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. (Phil. 3:20)

       

  • Towards this glorious victory at the end of the age, the Holy Spirit is given to the people of God as the “down payment”, the “firstfruits”, and the “seal”. These three metaphors refer to the outpouring of the Spirit and the indwelling Spirit in the new covenant reality. The Holy Spirit is the first payment of a total that is to be paid, the first fruits, or first gleanings of an entire harvest, and a seal that shows authenticity of the promise and hope. Future victory in Christ is both evident and guaranteed by the Holy Spirit in this age. These metaphors have an eschatological fulfillment, as seen in the following verses.
    • Of “seal” and “downpayment” (“guarantee”):“That in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.” (Eph. 1:10-14)“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were s

      ealed for the day of redemption.” (Eph. 4:30)

    • Of the “firstfruits” of the harvest:
      
      “Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.” (Rm. 8:23)
      1. Ruthven refers to “firstfruits” as being the power that will be revealed in the age to come, now operating through the Church by the power of the Holy Spirit. This includes the gifts and manifestations of the Holy Spirit that bring preparation of the Church’s consummation with Christ.
• The Spirit Is Central to eschatological fulfillment
  • The outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost and the indwelling Spirit in believers marked and confirmed the beginning of the end of the age. On the day of Pentecost, Peter preached that the event was a fulfillment of the eschatological words spoken by the prophet Joel, that the Holy Spirit would dwell in and among the people of God.But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams. And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; And they shall prophesy. I will show wonders in heaven above And signs in the earth beneath: Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. And it shall come to pass That whoever calls on the name of the Lord Shall be saved.’ (Acts 2:16-21)
    1. The giving of the Spirit brings together and unifies the people of God regardless of race (“all flesh”), gender (“sons and your daughters”), class or privilege (“servants”), and age (“young men” and “old men”).
    2. Scripturally, this new way of relating and defining the people of God as those who have the Holy Spirit dwelling in and among them is found in the Old Testament as the “new covenant”, which was prophesied as preceding “the awesome day of the Lord”. This “great day”, “terrible day”, or “awesome day” refers to the end of the age and the Second Coming of Christ.
  • The giving of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost confirmed the “new covenant” as spoken in Jeremiah (that superseded the conditional covenant on Mt. Sinai which is passing away). The major event of the new covenant being initiated in the giving of the Holy Spirit causes the future hope of the believer to dawn on them and pull them forward unto the end of the age.“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jer. 31:31-33)In that He says, “

    A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. (Heb. 8:13)

    • The Holy Spirit fulfilled the Old Covenant in the believer. In Romans 7 Paul explains how the believer died to the Law and the Law died to the believer in that the work of Christ and the indwelling Spirit in the believer fulfills the requirements of the Law and matures the believer, thereby superseding the Law through direct fulfillment.Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. (Rm. 7:4-6)
      
      
    • The death of the Law is found, really, in it’s fulfillment in Christ. As Romans 10:4 states, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”
  • The Spirit fulfills the promises of Abraham and brings in the nations
    • God’s promises to Abraham were three-fold: 1. Abraham would become a great (necessitates saved and Godlike) and innumerable nation, 2. Abraham and his descendants would inherit the Land of Israel, and 3. All the nations would be blessed through him. These promises necessitate the salvation of Israel as well as the resurrection, for Abraham is dead, whom the promises were made to.“Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Gen. 12:1-3)
      
      “But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”(Mt. 22:31-31)
      
      
    • It is through the work of Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit that the Gentiles were able to be grafted into the people of God. It is only with the understanding that the work of Christ and the indwelling Spirit fulfills the Law, that one can make sense of the Gentiles being included in the unified people of God, without observance of the Law. However, even the Jew was encouraged to put no confidence in the Law. ”This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:2-3)“For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and

      circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.” (Rm. 2:29)

    • God chose to bring in the fullness of the Gentiles through Israel’s rejection of the Messiah, Jesus, in order to in turn bring in the fullness of Israel. These two work hand in hand to fulfill the promises of Abraham and bring in the end of the age.“I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness! For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?” (Rom. 11:11-15)“

      And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” (Gal. 3:8)“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.” (Mt. 24:14)

      “And so all Israel will be [g]saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins.” (Rom. 11:26-27)

      
      

• The Indwelling Spirit brings in the Second Coming and the Resurrection

1. • Before the day of Pentecost, the last time the Spirit dwelt among the people of God, Israel, was in the First Temple before the glory of the Lord departed, as seen in Ezekiel 8 – 11.And the cherubim were lifted up. This was the living creature I saw by the River Chebar. When the cherubim went, the wheels went beside them; and when the cherubim lifted their wings to mount up from the earth, the same wheels also did not turn from beside them. When the cherubim stood still, the wheels stood still, and when one was lifted up, the other lifted itself up, for the spirit of the living creature was in them. Then the glory of the Lord departed from the threshold of the temple and stood over the cherubim. And the cherubim lifted their wings and mounted up from the earth in my sight. When they went out, the wheels were beside them; and they stood at the door of the east gate of the Lord’s house, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them. (Ez. 10:15-19)
     • Though the Jews rebuilt the Second Temple, there is no Scriptural evidence or even historical Jewish literature that shows that God’s presence dwelt therein as in the days of the First Temple. The only time God’s presence came to the Second Temple was in the form of Jesus who was there so often.And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)So they came to Jerusalem. Then J

       esus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. Then He taught, saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ” (Mk. 11:15-17)

     • Eschatological Scriptures, however, point to a time where God’s presence will be fully restored to the Temple, permanently, in the form of Jesus. This event would occur at the Second Coming. Afterward he brought me to the gate, the gate that faces toward the east. And behold,the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east. His voice was like the sound of many waters; and the earth shone with His glory. It was like the appearance of the vision which I saw—like the vision which I saw when I came to destroy the city. The visions were like the vision which I saw by the River Chebar; and I fell on my face. And the glory of the Lord came into the temple by way of the gate which faces toward the east. The Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court; and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the temple. Then I heard Him speaking to me from the temple, while a man stood beside me. And He said to me, “Son of man, this is the place of My throne and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever. No more shall the house of Israel defile My holy name, they nor their kings, by their harlotry or with the carcasses of their kings on their high places. (Ez. 43:1-7)
       
       “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ” (Mt. 23:37-39)
     • The Temple has been desolate until this day, and destroyed since 70 AD after Christ was not received by the nation of Israel as their Messiah. This, along with the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, stand as great support of God’s initiation of the new covenant through Jesus.
   • The death and resurrection of Christ made a way for the Holy Spirit to now dwell in the temple of the body of the believer. Unlike in God’s dwelling in the Temple, the indwelling Spirit seals the believer and will never leave. Likewise, the body of believers, the Church, is “being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” (Eph. 2:19-22) Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? (1 Cor. 6:19) 
     • The indwelling Spirit makes it possible for believers to be miraculously resurrected at the Second Coming after the Great Tribulation.But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. (Rom. 8:11)Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,

       at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” (1 Cor. 15:50-54)“And He will send His angels

       with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (Mt. 24:31)

   • The outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and the indwelling Spirit is profoundly corporate and individual, as it is past, present, and necessary for future eschatological fulfillment.
     • In the passage from Jeremiah about the new covenant, quoted above, God is concerned with the hearts and minds of his people. Rather than some mechanic and detached energy, the Holy Spirit living in the believer is profoundly personal, close, and concerned. The Holy Spirit has a mind, a will, emotions, speaks, can be grieved, can be insulted, can be lied to, etc. (Rm. 8:27; 1 Cor. 12:11; Rm. 15:30; Acts 13:2; Eph. 4:30; Heb. 10:29; Acts 5:3)
     • Similarly, the Spirit is working to bring together a corporate body and temple, a family, in which God can dwell in. Just as the day of Pentecost initiated the new covenant, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit now, as well as in a greater measure later, is central to ushering in the end of the age. As Wilson writes in The Holy Spirit and the Endtimes: A Season of Unusual Miracles, “There is nothing happening in the modern prophetic movement that is not a fulfillment of what God promised in the Old Testament.” . . . “The promise of a general outpouring of the Holy Spirit unfold as both component and confirmation of the coming of Messiah in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel— a trinity of the greatest prophets of Israel. It is a recurring theme in Isaiah, where God links the outpouring of His Spirit to the healing of the land— “I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring, and My blessing on your descendants.”
       
       
   • The Spirit, by manifestations and supernatural gifts given to the members of the body, empowers and sustains the people of God as they live in a “now, but not yet” reality. During this time, the Spirit works to bring the Church into “the fullness of Christ”, which is integral to the Second Coming.
     • Gifts and callings in this age, therefore, have an end goal and fulfillment. As Wilson says, referring to the day of Pentecost, mass conversions, and the giving of gifts, “But this is only the beginning of what God is unfolding.” ⁴ Just as the day of Pentecost produced several thousand converts, Wilson relates, the work of the Holy Spirit through the gifts of people is unto revivals until a final revival before the Second Coming.The Kingdom of God has been inaugurated on earth and is unfolding unto it’s most victorious end.And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. (Eph. 4:11-13)Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and

       His wife has made herself ready.” (Rev. 19:7)

       • The Holy Spirit brings in the full harvest of God, which is integral to the Second Coming of Christ. In arguing against secessionism (the belief that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are no longer in operation in the Church), Jon Ruthven states in his book, On the Cessation of the Charismata, “. . .Cessationism represents a failure to grasp the biblical portrayal of the eschatological outpouring of the Spirit of prophecy, expressed characteristically in the charismata, which are bestowed until the end of this age by the exalted Christ as manifestations of the advancing Kingdom of God.”“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come”. (Mt. 24:14)
     • On the other hand, the final days of Christ’s return will be marked with major signs and wonders in the earth and sky and the resurrection (lest the Church prematurely believe they have arrived, as did the Corinthians).“Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (Mt. 24:29-31)
       
       
       • Much of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians dealt with a wrong understanding of the Spirit, or spiritual gifts, and even gnosticism that show that the church believed that they had arrived and that the flesh was bad but the spiritual was good. This wrong view led them to deny the bodily resurrection, which Paul corrected in 1 Corinthians 15.