The Living God is not through with Israel. In fact he never intended to. Israel is God's only program. The old tree (Israel) is not uprooted and a new tree (church) is not planted in place of Israel. Instead the non-Jews got the privilege to be a part of his program through faith in God's Son Jesus Christ. Thus they too become the children of Abraham and people of God as Israel is. The wild olive shoots (non-Jews) were grafted into the original one (Israel) by God's grace.
Church is not a fresh new tree i.e. Church is not a new program but actually the next step of the original program, the one and only program Israel. It is not an after thought of God because of the Israel’s rebellious nature.
However for Israel also, salvation is only through faith in God's Son and not just because of their heritage of being Abraham's children through flesh. Thus for the Jews to continue to remain in God plan of salvation, they too need to have faith in Jesus. Since Jesus came as the next stage of the same old program.
And Jews and non-Jews, who put trust in Jesus, are together known as Church. You may call it the "TRUE Israel" (not NEW-Israel). Romans 9:1-8, 27, 30-33, Romans 10, Romans 11.
This stuff about Christianity being optional for Jews is nonsense. Jesus was "King of the Jews," remember. His disciplines were all Jews, Peter, Timothy, John, Mark, Matthew, Luke, etc. etc. etc.
ReplyDeleteMat 5:17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
Romans 2:28-29 For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.
Romans 9:6-8 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
Revelation 3:9 Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say they are Jews and are not, but lie - behold, I will make them come and bow down at your feet and they will learn that I have loved you.
The earliest Christians, all converted Jews, knew that all mankind had to convert. Why? Because there was no longer real Judaism; Judaism became Christianity and the Church the New Israel. This dispensationalist nonsense is a fad, less than 100 years ago, and with a very shaky biblical basis. There is NO SALVATION OUTSIDE THE CHURCH. You people are erecting a false god, the secular state of Israel, in place of Jesus and His Church!!!
Roach, What made you think my post meant that christianity is optional for Jews? Read it one more time carefully.
ReplyDeleteI thought my post was very clear that Christ is the next step in the Jewish faith, and a true Jew has to accept Christ. It is not optional.
Israel the country is nothing special, just a piece of dirt. The real Israel is Christ's Church.
ReplyDeleteJudaism, by explicitly denying the divinity of Christ, cannot be true now that Christ has been revealed. Its purpose as a religion was to prepare mankind for Christ's coming. Mission accomplished. Rabbicinical Judaism is just an elaborate, anti-Christian heresy, I'm afraid to say. Go look at what they ahve to say in the Talmud about Mary and Jesus' Virgin Birth if you fools don't believe me.
Of course there are many false and half-true belief systems out there. The falsity does not allow us to act unjustly towards Jews or Muslims or Buddhists or anyone else. Jews are people, made in the image of Christ, and called to Christ on the same basis as every other human being. But for Christians, Judaism today needs to be recognized for what it is: a denial of Christianity and a Covenant that has been completed in Christianity. It's not a matter of supercession so much as continuity; we are the heirs of Abraham, Issac, and Joseph, not the modern-day, Christ-denying Jews. So it is we who are being true to the Old Covenant and the New. They're two systems appropriate for different epochs, before Christ and what used to be called "In the Year of Our Lord."
This tree stuff is crap, dispensationalist nonsense, a heresy invented in the late 19th Century. Give me a break; you think Christians got it wrong for 2000 years and then some parochial half-educated Americans figured out some apocalyptic gnostic truth we were all blind to until recently. Sorry. I'm Catholic, like St. Peter, St. Augustine, and the Church Fathers. We're the people who brought you the Nicene creed, two natures in one person, and all the other theology most Christians take for granted. Go read Augustine and St. Jerome and all the other Church fathers and see why Judaism, Jewish religious practices, etc. are not only no longer necessary but a scandal for a universal religion revealed to all mankind.
Quit worshiping false Gods. Jews and Israel are no more important and no more sacred than any other group of human beings. They don't deserve anything from Christians, as Christians, on account of some supposed Biblical injunction to help the Jews. The Jews of the Bible today are believing Christians because we are following God's commandments and worshiping him properly, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So-called Jews, Christ-denying people who have an ethnic relationship to Abraham and the other Jews of the Old Testament are no more the Chosen People than Judas. And we know where he is today, as the Bible says, it's better if he had not been born.
Roach, it looks like we are talking the same thing but there seems to be some confusion. It looks like you have assumed a lot of things no one said here.
ReplyDeleteWho said Jewish religious practices are necessary?
Who said Church is not the True Israel?
The term 'Church' wouldn't have come to existence if all the Jews would have received Jesus as the promised Messiah. Since the majority didn't, those among the Jews who did receive Jesus as messiah were called as Christians. And these Jews as well as the non-Jews are the True Israel. Even today there are Jews who do not practice Judaism anymore and accept Jesus as the only Lord and Savior, but they have another terminology for themselves "Messianic Jews".
The tree stuff is not invented by me or anybody in the 21st century. It is what is written in God's Word, in Paul's epistle to Romans 9:1-8, 27, 30-33, Romans 10, Romans 11. Read ch 11 to find the tree stuff.
Jesus like parables, here's one that I should think would give you nutty Christian Zionists some pause about the alleged continuity of Jewish rights to Israel and the alleged continuing vitality of their Covenant which now, today, necessarily refutes Jesus' divinity:
ReplyDelete"Hear another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went on a journey.
When vintage time drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to obtain his produce.
But the tenants seized the servants and one they beat, another they killed, and a third they stoned.
Again he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones, but they treated them in the same way.
Finally, he sent his son to them, thinking, 'They will respect my son.'
But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.'
They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.
What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?"
They answered him, "He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times."
Jesus said to them, "Did you never read in the scriptures: 'The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes'?
Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.
The one who falls on this stone will be dashed to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.)"
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that he was speaking about them.
And although they were attempting to arrest him, they feared the crowds, for they regarded him as a prophet.
Quit worshipping Pharisses. Today's Jews are no better in God's eyes than Muslims Hindus or anyone else. They've rejected Him, even though they were the most prepared to receive him. Not only that, their spiritual ancestors, the Pharissees, killed Him. "May his blood be on our heads and the heads of our children," they said. Yet you all want to pretend that accepting Jesus is required of them, individually and collectively, today and yesterday?!?
These are false Gods indeed.
Hey Roach,
ReplyDeleteNo point in argueing with this guy...He's a die-hard fan of Israel..whether they are right or wrong.
His basic premise is that they can never be wrong even when they cluster bomb innocent women and children...Check out his other blog... http://the-truth-watch.blogspot.com/2006/08/terrorists-gambit.html
He beleives in the divine infalliablity of the nation of Israel
Roach, there's a difference between individuals and groups. As individuals we all need Jesus for salvation. But as a group, Israel is still under God's Covenant, and God still has a plan for them. We didn't replace, them, we were grafted onto the original tree. But that metaphor is not pertaining to salvation, but to God's relationship to a group, on earth. To confuse the two make much of both the Old and New Covenant meaningless.
ReplyDelete