[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote (Andry @ Mar. 08 2004,2:09)[/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]I'm new to this board.
Here are my thoughts on this subject. My short answer is, yes, they were saved.
1 Cor 10:1-5
1 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert. NIV
Paul is painting a picture here, to pull a carpet under anyone who would believe that the revelation, the manifestations of God, and the journeying of the children of Israel were any different to the revelation, the manifestations, and the journeyings of the people of God today. There’s only ever been one way of salvation: by grace, through faith, that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. The Bible says Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. It was not to do with genetics, it was to do with faith and belief systems. It wasn’t to do with how his body was formed, it was to do with how his heart was formed. So we have to come to this understanding there was just only one way of salvation, because here Paul is teaching us in 1 Corinthians that what we know as salvation and what we know as the visitation of God is no different to us today, than it was to the children of Israel who we call the Old Covenant children of Israel. And so he paints a picture here and says, ‘I don’t want you to be ignorant.’ ‘Our forefathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea. And were baptized unto Moses.’
The children of Israel were in cruel bondage in Egypt – which of course in the Bible is a picture and a type of our bondage when we are in sin, to the attitude and nature of this world. Now how were the children of Israel delivered from Egypt? Would you agree that it was the power of the shed blood of a lamb? That as the lamb was slain, and they applied the blood, that death passed from them and they came into life and deliverance came. Would that be fair? How did you come to salvation? In exactly the same way. By a spotless lamb, who past the test to be qualified to be the sacrifice so you could be redeemed and set free. That’s why John said, ‘Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.’ So they were born again, released, delivered from their captivity, in exactly, exactly, the same way that you are. Now there were looking forward to Christ, we look backwards to Christ. But it was all through the Lamb. It was all through the Lamb. So they were saved in the same way that we are. It says that they were baptized, unto Moses, in the sea and under the cloud; the moisture of the cloud covered them above, the water of the sea covered them from each side, and they passed through the waters of baptism to be cut off from the land of their enemies. Now when the Bible talks about baptism, it separates us from the place where we used to live into the place where we are going to live.
So these Old Covenant people was saved by the blood of the lamb, they were baptized and they walked according to the revelation of God. So as we begin to read this, Paul is basically painting the picture, verse 3 They all ate the same spiritual food. The same as what? The same that we eat. The same revelationary, manifest Word of God. You know some of us think that the Old Covenant thing was somehow less so, you know – if we listen to the revelations of Moses – the Bible says that he saw God face to face. Friend of God, never been a prophet like him before, the Bible says, so don’t think that somehow he had a lesser revelation than we had. He was a great man of God with revelation; it says they ate the same spiritual food. And they drank the same spiritual drink, verse 4, for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and – listen – that rock was Christ. They were as much into feeding off Christ as you and I.
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Andry,
Those were some great thoughts. I will take some time to soak them in.
Kevin