Tree of Life Christian Church

The church is so profound, that it challenges our understanding. To aid our understanding of the church, God gave us word pictures, or metaphors for the church in Scripture. To begin our look at Biblical metaphors for the church, we examine the metaphors of "the apple of God's eye," "light," "salt of the earth," and the "pillar of the truth."

David and Jonathan relationship What is fellowship

In this session, we look at how the New Testament church is the fulfillment of the Old Testament congregation. We'll see how a vision in the book of Zechariah, and the book of Ruth, look forward to this fulfillment of God's saving purposes for His people.

The New Testament church has continuity with the true people of God in the Old Testament congregation, but there are also very important differences. In this session, we look at how the New Testament church is an expansion of God's purposes for His elect. Unlike the Old Testament congregation, the New Testament church includes the elect from all nations, with no division between Christian Jews and Christian Gentiles.

We continue with the study of the doctrine of the church, by looking at a major difference between the Old Testament congregation and the New Testament church. That difference is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Our study of ecclesiology, or the doctrine of the church, continues with the topic of the continuity and differences of the New Testament church versus the Old Testament congregation. We also look at why the interpretive system of dispensationalism is in error; God only has one people, the church, not two separate peoples.

This session continues Systematic Theology, with part 1 of the doctrine of the church, ecclesiology. We cover the meaning of the terms universal church, local church, invisible church, and visible church.

We continue with the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, and address some of the objections to the doctrine.

This study covers the final part of the ordo salutis, perseverance of the saints.