Stephen Jones — Ecclesiology
b3 — Secrets of Time
Church and Israel — Two Levels
Jones explicitly rejects replacement theology while distinguishing two simultaneous levels on which God operates:
“God operates on more than one level at the same time. When dealing on the national level, God fulfills His Word to Israel, dispensing general blessings or judgments with little regard to men’s individual differences in belief, faith, or spiritual development. However, God also deals with people on a different level that does make a clear distinction between Overcomers, believers in general, and unbelievers.”
[Jones, Secrets of Time, ch. 11]
Jones names the view he rejects:
“It is also commonly taught among other Christian groups that the Church has now become ‘Chosen,’ replacing the national with the spiritual.”
[Jones, Secrets of Time, ch. 11]
Interpretation: Jones rejects both exclusive-national theology (God works only through national Israel) and replacement ecclesiology (the church replaces Israel). The church functions as the “spiritual level” alongside the “national level” of Israel — both operating simultaneously.
Transfer of the Kingdom (Matt. 21:43)
Jones distinguishes “legally chosen” from “actually chosen”:
“There is a significant difference between legal Chosenness and actual Chosenness. Those legally Chosen are those whom God holds accountable to bring forth the Fruits of the Kingdom. Those who are actually Chosen are those who will indeed bring forth the Fruits of the Kingdom (Matt. 21:43).”
[Jones, Secrets of Time, ch. 11]
The underlying text is Matt. 21:43: “The Kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the Fruits thereof.”
Interpretation: Legal election (entrusted responsibility) applies to national Israel and to the church. Actual election is determined by who truly produces Kingdom Fruits. This distinction forms the basis for Jones’ category of “Overcomers” within the church versus ordinary believers.
The Fig Tree and the Modern Israeli State
Jones interprets the establishment of the State of Israel as prophetic fulfillment of a negative kind — the fruitless fig tree:
“The whole purpose of His curse upon the fig tree was to let us know that this nation would not bring forth the Fruits of the Kingdom that God required from the beginning.”
[Jones, Secrets of Time, ch. 11; ref. Matt. 21:18-19; 24:32-33]
Jones holds that the church plays a role in spiritual judgment over this nation:
“Jesus was telling His disciples that such spiritual warfare was possible for them as well. More than this, He implies strongly that Christians would likewise curse the fig tree nation at some point in time by means of spiritual warfare.”
[Jones, Secrets of Time, ch. 11]
Jones identifies the Israeli state as fulfilling a dual prophetic line:
“I believe that the Israeli state is fulfilling a dual set of prophecies: one set for Esau and one for the remnant of Judah. Is this really a movement to restore Jacob (Israel) to the Promised Land? Or is it actually a fulfillment of Malachi 1:4, where Edom is shown to have Zionist sentiments, desiring to ‘return and rebuild’?”
[Jones, Secrets of Time, ch. 11; ref. Mal. 1:4]
Interpretation: Jones partly identifies Zionism with the prophetic line of Esau/Edom. This stands in direct tension with the dispensationalist view that Israel’s statehood is unambiguously a sign of salvation. [TENSION with pro-Israel evangelical ecclesiology]
Church Government — Theocracy versus Humanism
In ch. 13, Jones uses the theme “no king in Israel” (Judg. 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25) as a paradigm for legitimate church authority. The structural problem of Israel was the absence of direct divine governance:
“They were supposed to be a theocracy, wherein God ruled them directly; but in fact, they seldom did the Will of God.”
[Jones, Secrets of Time, ch. 13]
Jones connects this to the danger of conscience-autonomy in church government:
“Essentially, the book stands as a warning to humanists, who believe that man has the right and duty to legislate his own moral codes by the power of human reasoning which they call ‘conscience.’ The book shows us that one’s conscience was not given to legislate, but rather to interpret and apply the law of God to one’s everyday life.”
[Jones, Secrets of Time, ch. 13]
“A conscience is man-made, and is therefore only reliable when it has been taught the law of God, is in submission to it, and knows the mind of God.”
[Jones, Secrets of Time, ch. 13]
Jones connects Israel’s historical captivity to the absence of legitimate authority:
“The theme of ‘no king in Israel’ was thus prophesied upon the House of Israel during their years of captivity to Assyria, as part of their judgment for their humanistic views.”
[Jones, Secrets of Time, ch. 13; ref. Hos. 3:4]
Interpretation: Ecclesiologically, Jones implies that any church government based on human conscience rather than God’s law reproduces the same anarchy depicted in Judges. Legitimate church authority requires theocracy — submission to God’s law as the supreme norm.
The Church as Pentecost Age — Inadequate and in Transition
Jones places church history within a heilsgeschichtlich framework of Biblical feasts and Jubilee cycles:
“The Pentecost Age lasted 40 Jubilees (1960 years), extending from 33 A.D. to 1993 A.D. At the end of that time, we entered into the transition into the Tabernacles Age. The history of the Church during the Age of Pentecost certainly proves this inadequacy.”
[Jones, Secrets of Time, ch. 11; refs. Acts 2; Lev. 23:17; Eph. 1:14; 2Cor. 1:22; 5:5]
Interpretation: Jones regards the Pentecost Age church as heilshistorically incomplete — it bears only “firstfruits” (Lev. 23:17, the leavened loaves), not the fullness. The Tabernacles Age marks the coming of the Overcomers, an elite within the church who receive the fullness of the Spirit (Eph. 1:14 as “earnest” not yet fully redeemed).
Modern Nations as Tribal Heirs of Israel
In ch. 15, Jones identifies specific modern nations as the fulfillment of Jacob’s tribal prophecies, with direct ecclesiological implications for the identity of God’s people:
“In the great parable of the nations, we see the European nations representing the sons of Jacob. Britain stands at the head of those nations, geographically pictured as Jacob himself. In fact, their flag is called the ‘Union Jack.’ Jack is a shortened form for Jacob.”
[Jones, Secrets of Time, ch. 15]
America and Canada are identified with the two tribes of Joseph:
“Joseph was ‘sold’ into the wilderness and was ‘separate from his brethren’ (Gen. 49:26) for 210 years. The land of Joseph itself in this parable became two nations, Canada and the United States, even as Joseph had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh.”
[Jones, Secrets of Time, ch. 15; ref. Gen. 49:26]
The nations are deployed as prophetic instruments to “reenact” Jacob’s trouble, with the goal of bringing forth the Manchild:
“This, then, is why God picked America and Britain to reenact the time of Jacob’s trouble from 1776 to 1986/96. God was fulfilling His Word on a physical level, so that we might know what He is doing on the spiritual level to bring forth the Manchild.”
[Jones, Secrets of Time, ch. 15]
Interpretation: In Jones’ framework, ecclesial identity is closely intertwined with the tribal identity of the Anglo-Saxon nations. The “Overcomers” who enter the Tabernacles Age are not coincidentally connected to the Ephraim/Manasseh inheritance. [TENSION with classical ecclesiology which regards the church as transnational and non-ethnic]