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Post by sw on Apr 27, 2009 20:18:56 GMT -5
:)I have a question for discussion. Background: I am a Christian and believe that Salvation(relationship with God) comes only thru Jesus. The promise God made to Abram: does this mean that Israel, remains the favored nation in God's eyes thru-out history? Even if and after they reject(as a whole - numerous exceptions Jesus as the Messiah? Are the Jews still God's people? Aren't we who have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior now "Sons of Abraham"? Paul seemed to think so. Now that "All nations on the Earth have been blessed" thru Abraham's seed" "Sons of David" , does the Jewish nation still hold a special place? A literal interpretation of Revelation seems to indicate, yes. Does David Jeramiah's statement that the USA started a downward trend after we supported the Oslo Agreement(trading land for peace) really hold merit? I do really respect David J. but still want to know others' thoughts. Thanks, Steve Gen 17:7-8. Deut 11:12 Isaiah 11:11 Ezekiel 36:24-28 Etc
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Post by dougedwards on Apr 27, 2009 22:24:14 GMT -5
Romans 1:16 is an interesting verse which I think may sum up a possible response to your question. Here the apostle Paul states that the gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation which is offered first to the Jew and also for the Gentile. The Holy Bible leaves no room for interpretation as it emphatically states that there is only one way unto salvation and that is through the Son of the Living God, Jesus the Christ. Probably the most often quoted and read verse in the New Testament found in the gospel of John 3:16 reads as follows:
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. 21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God. 36 He who believes in the Son has life everlasting but HE WHO DOES NOT BELIEVE IN THE SON SHALL NOT SEE LIFE AND THE WRATH OF GOD ABIDES ON HIM".
Also in Romans 9 Paul is explaining how God keeps His promise to Israel but that not all who have descended from Israel are inheritors of the promise. This promise did not work itself down through the flesh but the children of promise are counted as seed. This all can be rather confusing obviously, and sometimes I am inclined to wonder whether a man's opportunity to accept Christ is limited to this lifetime. Because we are told that at some point "all knees will bend and all heads will bow" to the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
There is much more to include in this discussion but in the end we who love Christ must trust the sovereignty of the Creator when we read Romans 9:16
"So then, it is not by him who wills nor by him who runs, but it is of God's merciful call."
Doug
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2009 23:41:58 GMT -5
SW... I think you're on the right track....One thing we can rest assured in is the everlasting faithfulness of God. In Genesis 12 we see where God first established his covenant with Abram where he promised Abram that he would make his name great and that he would be a blessing. Also that God would bless those who bless Abram and his descendants and curse those who come against Abram and his descendants. This is where David Jeremiah and others, myself included, believe that we as a country should always be an ally and a blessing to the nation of Israel.
Later in Genesis 15 we see God reassuring Abram that his promises haven't changed. In verse 6 of that chapter we see where Abram believed the Lord and he credited it to him as righteousness.
The verses you referenced to in Genesis, Duet, Isaiah, and Ezek, are excellent proofs that God is not through with his people. I like you believe the bible to be interpreted literally and nothing is to be spiritualized away. Other places in scripture such as Romans 9-11 make that perfectly clear. Although Israel as nation rejected their Messiah there will always be a remnant set aside for himself.
As Doug said very well, Christ died for the Jew and the Gentiles. That is good news! "The seed" that you referred to is Christ himself[ Gal3:16] and then in [Gal3:29] we see that if we belong to Christ we are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to his promise. There is only one way to get right with God both for the Jew or the gentile and that is through faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ [Gal3].
Beginning in Revelation4 I believe we see the start of the tribulation where God will be dealing with his people once again. The church has been raptured and a new dispensation will begin. His called remnant will preach the same gospel to Israel and to anyone who will listen. In the end of that time I believe that the promises of [Jeremiah 30-31] will be ultimately fulfilled. [Jeremiah 31:31-37] says it the best....A new covenant will be made with them.
Didn't mean to sound preachy but it excites me more than shooting my Savage to talk about all the promises of God That are found in Christ... He's done all that needs to be done; all we need to do is believe it. ;D ;D ;D Zen
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Post by craigf on May 2, 2009 23:11:45 GMT -5
SW, very good question. In full discloser, in am in school for this stuff, but every seminary/denomination/person.... has an opinion on this. I want to start by thanking Doug and Panhandle for very thought out answers with Scripture references, it wins, not our opinions, period. How I see this, and how I have been taught, is that the OT and NT must both be looked at to get a good answer. God has been on a mission since he created the world. This mission is being in realation with a people that would know him and worship him. We know how Adam handled his end of that.... In comes Abraham, actually, Abram at this point in the story (yes I mean to use the word "story", the word does not mean false, fake, or makebelieve, but a account with real details that we are to read as historical nonfiction story- it has a point) is most likely a pagan idol worshiper who has know idea who the one true God is. God still wants a people for himself and as he always does, he acts first when we don't desirve it. He calls Abram out of Ur and in Gen 12:1-3 God gives his promise of blessing and his reason why, so that in Abram all nations would be blessed. If I am correct that this is the "mission statement" for Israel, to be a blessing to all nations, then it makes perfect since that Jesus Christ, the only Savior, would come from Israel. Now fast forward to the NT. Jesus calls Israel, especially the Pharisees and Priest, for not being Israel. They were genetically Jewish, but they got that being a blessing to all nations part messed up. They thought that God only cared about them. Now jump to Paul. Paul can almost be condensed into to major points for all of his letters. First, only Jesus and nothing else for salvation. Nothing less and nothing more, period. Second, is dealing with Jewish and Gentile Christians. He keeps on saying that they are the same and to stop fighting. The whole circumsicions and weeker brother thing. Paul says over and over that the church, that is Christians, are true Israel, are true Jews. An example is 1st Corinthians 10:1-5. At first is does not look like much here. Paul starts by talking about the Jews in the wilderness leaving Egypt with Moses and calls them our fathers. But this is the important part. Paul is Jewish and the vast majority of the Corinthian church was Gentile, it was Greeks. Paul tells them that the Jews in the Exodus were his and their fathers. They are their spirtual decends. This fits with other places, which has allready been said, were he calls them sons of Abraham. So here is the issue, or at least as I see it. I am a Bible literal guy. But, the Bible does speak figuratively sometimes like God will protect his people under his mighty wings. I don't think that the intention of this verse was to tell use that God has actual wings but an illustration tell his people that that he can be trusted to provide and protect them. So with being literal, the issue is who is Israel? Many believe that it is by bloodline, but what about the 11 missing tribes? Judah, one of the 12, was captured by the Babalonians (and also some of Bengamin and Levi) after the other 11 were captured by the Syrians and they never returned. Some were left to tend the captured land with Syrians sent to watch them, this is were the Samarians, which the Jews of Jesus' day hated with a passion, came from. The Jews that returned to Israel and who the Romans kicked out again were from the Tribe of Judah. So there are a lot of people out there with Jewish blood in them and they don't know it. Also, it brings up a point, how much Jewish blood do you need for God to count you as his choisen people? Other people believe that Israel is the Church, the worldwide body of Christian believers. I side with this position. It allows me to be a literal Bible believer and hold this view. As to Israel today and David J. First, I respect him a WHOLE lot and think that he is smarter than I will ever be. Second, I 100% agree with Israel being a Jewish country exactly were it is and that it has every right to defend itself against any attacker, either homicidal terrorist, cowards who send rockets from schools and playgrounds, or other countries. I disagree that we have to support Israel unconditionaly to be blessed by God, or cursed if we fail to. My reasoning is that first, God has kicked Israel out 2 times. Who am I to tell God he can't do it again. Second, what should we do if Israel tommorrow captures every non Jewish person there, tourists from here and europe, and start killing them off in a very slow and painful way? Should we unconditionally support them then as followers of God? I say no, it would be a sin. Do we support them now, yes! Do the Palistinians desirve a place to live and govern themselves, yes. Give them a state, they don't get ANY of Jeruselam, and then if they do anything to Israel it is not terrorism anymore, but an act of way from one country to another and Israel can rightfully flatten it as we did Germany in WWII. My personal opinion, in which I differ from my school and most in my denomination, is that God has a special place in his heart for racial Jews. This does not get them free pass to heaven though. Jesus was pretty clear on the only way to the father was through him thing. I read Revelations as that he calls them back to himself because he has not forgotten them. I also see this in that he is calling them to himself today and there are very many Jewish Christians. Oh, the nice thing is that with either side of the Israel people of God isuue, Jesus cruxified, died, and risen! Only through him do we have the free gift of eternal life, and none of us, with me first on the list, deserve the offer! Thanks and Gorly be to God for saving sinners! SW, I hope that I answered your question without rambling to much.
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Post by sw on May 10, 2009 21:15:54 GMT -5
Jesus cruxified, died, and risen! Only through him do we have the free gift of eternal life, and none of us, with me first on the list, deserve the offer! Craig, Once we get beyond this AND the greatest commandment answer given by Jesus, we get into significant opinion. Many of the things beyond this are what Christians divide over. It's ok to be doctrinally interested; but when they become our focus of attention/security, they have passed from an interest into an issue(often a dissive issue). Jesus Crucified for our sins, our acceptance of Him as our Lord and Savior and living in response to this, in a close relationship with God/Jesus/HS is what it is about IMO. I appreciate your answer and time put forth. Doug and Panhandle, thank you for your insights also. Steve
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Post by Buckrub on May 12, 2009 13:50:33 GMT -5
SW, I'll give all the passages you want to support my view. But I'll sum up my answer and you can ask if you want more details. The answer is "no". God is NO RESPECTER OF PERSONS, period (Acts 10:34, spoken by Peter, who had just figured out that this new religion was NOT to the Jews, he had thought it was and wouldn't even eat some things). The whole purpose of "Go into all the world" was to obliterate the relationship that you had by birth and circumcision, physically, and begin a whole NEW world, a whole NEW religion, based on belief and faith and obedience. There is no more sacrifice at the altar (that was taken care of). There is no more tithing, there is no more of ANY of the law. The law is gone. Nailed to the cross. The entire book of Hebrews is pretty clear, and it takes reading the whole thing to figure it out. Of course, that means there is no more 10 Commandments either, and that gives a lot of people trouble. What they miss, is that each was replaced with a BETTER commandment (Read Matthew....'you have heard of OLD that it says thus, but I TELL YOU thus....", in other words, that old stuff ain't true anymore, here's one that's BASED on the same principle but it's better, different, not the same thing. It was prophesied that the Jews would 'end' as God's chosen people when 'no stone was left on top of another'. That happened in A.D. 70 when the Romans under Titus destroyed Jerusalem by siege. When they came to the temple, it had burned....and the tons of gold involved in it had run down the cracks of the rocks and bricks. So they dismantled it piece by piece to get it. Read Jocephus (historian). Thus, the Jews could not exist as a religious people anymore, because without the Temple there was no more history of what tribe a man belonged to. Without that, there could be no Priests from Levi, nor High Priests from the house of Aaron. There was no longer any way to practice Judaism. The Jews today try, but they don't get close. Besides, how often in the New Testament do you find all of the apostles fighting constantly with the Jewish leadership, and condemning "Judaising teachers"? Now, as some have mentioned, the word "Israel" has sometimes been used as a metaphor for the Church. We're not talking about that, though. We're talking about a country that has only been called Israel for 60 years. In fact, the country of Israel was 'born' on the same day I was! How about that? So they will be 61 years old next month. If they didn't exist for 1,900 years, in any form, why would they be "God's chosen land" now? Why weren't they God's chosen land in 1843? or 1139? We have indeed been blessed through Abraham's SEED......read first chapter of Matthew to see how.....Christ was born of the tribe of Judah. We are indeed saved by God's love. But that's one sided, God to Us. On the other side, if you want to love God, he tells you how in John 14:15 and John 15:14. Seems that salvation is a bit conditional, after all. It's AVAILABLE to all, but all won't get it, because all won't be obedient to the commandments he claims to have. We don't deserve it, and it's free, but it's conditional. Much like a ring of fire with a bug in the middle. If you stick a stick into the fire from above, and thus allow the bug to crawl out, you have FREELY GIVEN salvation to the bug, but he had to do something to get it. You did not reach in and snatch the bug to save him, whether he wanted it or not. I see our salvation the same way. But I have no more affinity for the COUNTRY of Israel than I do for Bolivia or Romania, other than historically as the place where most of the Bible events occurred.
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Post by ozark on May 12, 2009 14:34:26 GMT -5
I suppose we could discuss each item seperately but here I will just mention one point that Buckrub alluded to. I think that the Ten Commandants are still the law and valid. Why? Christ stated that he did not come to do away with the law but to fulfill it. One clear definition of fullfill is "Put into effect." I am not going to deal here with the other points because if I am right or wrong here the rest would probably be in the same sack. Ozark
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Post by Buckrub on May 12, 2009 15:19:46 GMT -5
Most everyone agrees with you, Ozark. I think 'fulfill' means to complete. The testament is complete, the will has been read, the will's items were fulfilled. It's over. That's how I see it.
Besides, if the 10 Commandments were in effect, you'd have to worship on Saturday. Sabbath means "rest" or the Day that God rested from his labor when making the world. He didn't rest on the first day of the Week (Sunday). He rested on Saturday.
And in the 10 Commandments, you had to actually kill a man to be sinning. In the New Testament, just hating him enough to do it (whether you do it or not) is all it takes to be guilty of murder. They just aren't the same.
But the BASIS for our new laws is indeed the 10 Commandments (and the hundreds of commandments that followed them in Exodus).
Not sure why those 10 are the only ones folks want to keep. There's TONS of 'em in the chapters that follow Exodus 20.......yet no one seems to want to keep them at all!
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Post by ozark on May 12, 2009 15:54:48 GMT -5
Not wanting to stir up a mess but It is my belief that Saturday is the sabbath. But then my belief is that there is no everlasting hell where the lost burns eternally. I cannot get away from the scripture that states that "The sole that sins shall die." and that the wages of sin is death. I think it is Hell to be seperated from God and if one is consumed in the lake of fire then they are consumed and are no longer existing.. I am going to excuse myself from this thread because I have found that the vast majority of people are attempting to prove themselves right rather than seeking and accpeting the truth. I sure don't have all the answers. Just enough to permit me to pass on without fears. If things turns out differently from how I now feel is right then I will willingly accept that I was unintentionally wrong. Ozark
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Post by dougedwards on May 12, 2009 15:57:31 GMT -5
I suppose we could discuss each item seperately but here I will just mention one point that Buckrub alluded to. I think that the Ten Commandants are still the law and valid. Why? Christ stated that he did not come to do away with the law but to fulfill it. One clear definition of fullfill is "Put into effect." I am not going to deal here with the other points because if I am right or wrong here the rest would probably be in the same sack. Ozark "the law of the Lord is perfect at converting the soul." Psalm 19:7 In 1991 a major denominational church set out as a goal to reach out to as many people as possible in an attempt to convert these same people to the Christian faith. Eleven and a half thousand churches in one year converted 194,000 people to a confession for Christ. One year later only 14,000 could be found attending any church at all. That suggests that 180,000 converts "fell away" from the faith. The contemporary evangelical strategy to "win" souls to Christ is to never mention the law but to emphasize the grace of God through Christ. However presenting a cure to someone who isn't convinced that he is sick is usually fruitless. A man was getting ready to board an airplane when a fellow walked up to this man and presented him with a parachute. The fellow told the man that if he were to wear the parachute on the plane it would surely improve his flight. The man asked how much this parachute might cost him and the fellow said that it was a free gift from him. The man installed the parachute upon his back and boarded the plane. Not long after, that the man discovered that the weight of the parachute was cumbersome and that he was unable to lean back into his chair. Also other passengers were snickering and poking fun at this man with a parachute on his back. The man unbuckled the parachute from his back and threw it to the floor. The man also felt that the gift giving fellow had lied to him because the parachute hadn't seemed to improve his flight at all. Another man was boarding a plane but was approached differently by a fellow with a parachute in hand. The fellow told this boarding passenger that at any moment his plane would be falling 25,000 feet to the ground to his demise and offered him the parachute to save his life. The man when asked about the price to be paid for the parachute was told that it was bought with a heavy price and given to him as a free gift. You see, this second man didn't fold under the promise of temptation, persecution, hardship and tribulation. His motive for wearing this cumbersome parachute on a plane had nothing to do with enhancing his flight but had everything to do with life and death. When things got tough he would just cling tighter to his saving grace and was so appreciative of the gift and also of the messenger who told him about this free gift. When we come to understand that we who have trangressed this perfect law of God deserve to be banished from His presence for all time and eternity, then we can come to love the grace that pulls us from the gates of hell and also fully understand and accept the blood sacrifice of our perfect Savior. When we skip telling people of the depth of their disease and only offer them a cure then we fall short of telling them the whole truth. Those who feel the gratitude of truly being saved from death and hell cling to the cure and fall in love with Him who has offered this cure that was paid with a price so high that none could afford. Historically when Jesus was approached about the subject of eternal life He offered law to the proud and grace to the humble. The law was given to the Israelites and they could not keep it. The "seed" from the Israelites offers freedom from the law for all who are truly repentant of their deeds and fall before the Living God in tear filled gratitude. This is offered first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. Doug
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Post by Buckrub on May 13, 2009 13:41:50 GMT -5
Sadly, Ozark, I wish you were right but I disagree. Matthew 25:46 says hell is everlasting. Hard to imagine in our finite brains, but the punishment of being 'consumed' will last forever.
I wish I understood it better. I fear for my ultimate home, knowing myself.
Not sure what you mean by attempting to prove themselves right. I always try to let God talk to me through His Word and accept that, not my ideas. But when He is plain, I try to accept it and not argue with Him.
Oh.....and I agree that Saturday is the Sabbath. So why would we be abiding by the 10 Commandments if it tells us to keep Saturday holy??? We don't. We have a new law and a new day.
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Post by ozark on Jan 13, 2010 20:32:03 GMT -5
The original by SW questioned the Israelites and Jews. Since they don't accept that Jesus was the Messiah then all the quotes from the New Testament are unacceptable as proof to the Jews. As I understand, they are yet looking for the Messiah to come. I think what we believe is at least partly based on how we were raised up to believe. Partly from our personal experiences and partly by accepting that which we want to accept.
I am closing in on time left on earth. I need all the help and understanding that I can get. But, as I have alluded to often here, I have made my peace with God. Maybe it isn't in agreement with the understandings of men of any group. But it is good enough for me to let God be the judge of whether I am accepted or not. I know so little, amount to so little that it isn't whether I know the truth about the Bible or don't. God is my judge and He knows I haven't invented things for others to follow. May my God bless and guide us all along the path that He would have us walk.
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