Posted on 09/21/2014 10:09:50 AM PDT by wmfights
Will Israel Continue as a Nation?
The point at issue. In previous discussion of the Abrahamic Covenant, it was shown that the term seed of Abraham had three distinct meanings as used in Scripture. It is used (1) of the natural seed of Abraham, limited in some contexts to the seed of Jacob or Israel; (2) it is used of the spiritual seed of Abraham within the natural seed—spiritual Israel; (3) it is used of those who are spiritual seed of Abraham but not natural descendants, i.e., Gentile believers. Premillenarians concede to amillenarians the existence of a spiritual seed of Abraham. The point at issue is that amillenarians insist that the Abrahamic Covenant is fulfilled only through the spiritual seed of Abraham and that therefore Israel racially and nationally has no covenant promises.
The meaning of the term “Seed of Abraham.” The usual amillennial position is stated by Albertus Pieters in these words: “Whenever we meet with the argument that God made certain promises to the Jewish race, the above facts are pertinent. God never made any promise to any race at all, as a race. All His promises were to the continuing covenanted community, without regard to its racial constituents or to the personal ancestry of the individuals in it. Hence no proof that those whom the world now calls ‘the Jews’ are descended from Abraham, if it could be supplied (which it can not), would be of any avail to prove that they are entitled to the fulfillment of any divine promise whatsoever. Those promises were made to the covenanted group called ‘The Seed of Abraham,’ and to that community they must be fulfilled. What is needed is that one shall bring forward proof of his membership in that group.”1 all families of the earth be blessed.” Nothing should be plainer than that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob understood the term seed as referring to their physical lineage. While blessing is promised those outside the seed of Abraham if they believe as godly Abraham believed, the particular promises of a great posterity, of possession of the land, and being the channel of blessing to Gentiles is never given to any except the physical seed. Again it should be made clear that God is not undertaking to fulfill the promise to all the physical seed of Abraham, but through some of them, chosen as the line of the seed. While the line of the seed culminates in Christ, who fulfills much of the promise of blessing to the Gentiles, it is clear that all the twelve tribes not only Judah, were considered the seed of Abraham and in particular the seed of Israel.
While Pieters’ presentation of the amillenarian position accomplishes about all that could be asked for that viewpoint, it must be rejected as lacking any positive proof. The arguments, however cogently presented, do not prove the point at issue. The Scriptural use of the term seed of Abraham while it justifies the concept of a spiritual seed does not exclude the promises to the physical seed. The amillenarian arguments beg the question by assuming what they are trying to prove. The fact is that Pieters and most amillenarians seem to avoid the real issues and in their discussion of the Abrahamic Covenant do not deal with that aspect that concerns the physical seed.
The concluding point of Pieters, that the Jews have no racial continuity, is an illustration of the extremes to which amillenarians are forced to go to sustain their position. Certainly the world today is bearing witness to the continuing physical strain of Jewish blood, however contaminated by marriage with Gentiles. The Jews themselves acknowledge this physical lineage. Practically all Biblical scholars who are conservative acknowledge it whether premillennial, postmillennial, or amillennial. Certainly the Scriptures continue the recognition of this people even after centuries of intermarriage with Gentiles. The Book of Revelation in its prophetic account of things future speaks of the twelve tribes being again identified by God. In modern history we have witnessed the creation of the political state of Israel in Palestine, the persecution of Jews as such in Europe, the continued teachings of orthodox Judaism as well as its reformed counterparts. Anyone in the face of such overwhelming evidence for recognition of the physical seed of Abraham in the world today who in effect denies them right and title to the name Israel is shutting his eyes to some very plain facts. One of the greatest of modern miracles has been the preservation of the identity of Israel as a race and nation, a fact which has been the stumbling stone for the amillennial denial of Israel’s future. To deny that Israel has a bona fide existence today is to ignore that which is plain to everyone else.
The term “Israel.” The millennial controversy over the meaning of the term seed of Abraham carries over into the term Israel. As a title given to Jacob, meaning prince of God, it has commonly been used to designate the physical descendants of Jacob. While amillenarians tend to deny that the seed of Abraham has any physical reference, as we have seen, they concede that the term Israel has some physical reference. The question at issue does not concern the Old Testament use of the term so much as it concerns the New Testament meaning of Israel.
Amillenarians characteristically do not agree among themselves on even the essentials of their theology, and their concept of Israel is a good illustration. The older and more familiar type of amillenarians, of which Calvin may be taken as a representative, holds that when Israel rejected Christ they lost their promises and that the New Testament church has become the inheritor of Israel’s covenants. The church of the New Testament, they hold, is Israel. Oswald Allis, for instance, is a staunch defender of Calvin’s viewpoint and goes so far as to label as extremists all who disagree with him on this point. He states: “Carrying to an almost unprecedented extreme that literalism which is characteristic of Millenarianism, they [the Brethren Movement] insisted that Israel must mean Israel, and that the kingdom promises in the Old Testament concern Israel and are to be fulfilled to Israel literally.”2 Allis is a little wild in this charge as will be made evident. The idea that Israel means Israel is not unprecedented, nor is it confined to the Brethren movement. It is held in its essentials by the postmillenarian Charles Hodge3 and by Professor William Hendriksen of Calvin Seminary, an avowed amillenarian.4 Allis seems unaware that he himself is the one out of step. The whole tendency of modern theology both conservative and liberal is toward the position of distinguishing rather than merging Biblical Judaism and Christianity.
The newer allennial approach to the meaning of the term Israel is to regard it as always being basically a reference to those physically Israel. They may regard them like Hendriksen as spiritual Israel or elect Israel down through the ages, or like the postmillenarian Charles Hodge as Israelites who become Christians—certainly one of the Biblical usages, but there is no longer much zeal to make the church the inheritor of all Israel’s promises.
There are a number of good reasons for this trend away from Calvin and his modern disciple Allis. Obviously the church does not fulfill in any literal way the great bulk of Israel’s promises which had to do with repossession of the land, Israel’s regathering, and a glorious kingdom on earth. It is much easier and more logical to seal off these promises as conditional and therefore no longer subject to fulfillment. This permits a more logical exposition of the passages without embarrassment by comparison with the history of the church. Further, Israel is promised curses as well as blessings under her covenants. To qualify for the blessings puts the church in a compromising position of being involved in Israel’s curses also. Modern amillennialism prefers to stand on New Testament rather than Old Testament promises. and privilege constantly in his epistles. He declares that their peculiar promises include the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, the promises, the fathers, and the privilege of being the people of whom Christ should come (Rom 9:4-5). Now, it is obvious that Paul is referring to Israel in unbelief when he refers to those who have these privileges, for he declares: “I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: who are Israelites…” (Rom 9:3-4). He declares that they even in unbelief “are Israelites,” and relates to them all the peculiar privileges of Israel. It is evident that the institution of the church did not rob Israel in the flesh of its peculiar place of privilege before God.
This declaration is given added weight by the fact that in Ephesians 2:12 Gentiles are expressly declared to have been excluded from the promises given to Israel: “That at that time ye [Gentiles] were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.” The passage goes on to state their privilege as Christians in the church. It is noteworthy that Paul does not say that the Gentiles came into these same Israelitish promises when they were converted; rather he pictures a work of God bringing Jew and Gentile into a new order entirely—”one new man” (Eph 2:15). It may be concluded without further argument that the distinction between natural Israel and Gentiles is continued after the institution of the church—Israel is still a genuine Israel, and the Gentiles continue to fulfill their part. While this fact of the Scripture is more or less admitted even by the amillennialist, the significance is not adequately realized. The continuance of Israel and Gentiles as such is a strong argument against either one being dispossessed of their own place. Israel is not reduced to the bankruptcy of the Gentiles—to become “strangers from the covenants of promises” (Eph 2:12), and the distinction between the two groups is maintained on the same sharp lines as before the church was instituted. the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fullness?” (Rom 11:12). In other words, if the blindness which has fallen upon Israel nationally during this present age was the occasion for great blessing for the Gentiles, the “fulness” of Israel will bring a richness of blessing which will be “much more.” Now, obviously, there can be no fullness of Israel if they have no future. Their fullness will come when the present condition of blindness is lifted.
He takes occasion to warn the Gentiles of their present privileges on the basis of this argument. In Romans 11:15 he refers again to the future blessing of Israel: “For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?” It is true that he speaks of Israel being broken off that the Gentiles might be grafted in (Rom 11:17-24), but he also speaks of the future ingrafting of Israel back into “their own olive tree” (Rom 11:24). This is contingent upon the “blindness” being lifted, and it is declared that the blindness will continue “until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in” (Rom 11:25). The use of the word until signifies not only that the period of Gentile blessing will end, but it also indicates that a future period of Israel’s ingrafting will follow. Samuel H. Wilkinson has brought this out: “If and when an ‘until’ sets a time-limit to any group of conditions, it makes the said group of conditions to be temporary not everlasting, to be preliminary not final. And the change, whatever it be, which is to occur when the time-limit is reached and passed, must surely refer to the same object as that which was submitted to the temporary conditions. With these two reasonable considerations in view, it will be found that all the time-limits described in the New Testament leave room for the full scope of Old Testament prophecy to become in due time realized.”6
The distinction between Israel outside of the church and the church itself, then, is a highly significant fact of Scripture. The Scriptures clearly state that Israel in unbelief is blinded, that this blinded condition is temporary not final, that the blindness will be lifted when the present period of Gentile blessing is concluded. The fulfillment of the covenants with Israel will follow, as Romans 11:26-32 indicates. Not only the fact of Israel’s continuance is revealed, but Israel’s present program and future blessings are specifically outlined in Romans eleven and other portions of Scripture which need not be discussed at this time.
Spiritual Israel and Gentile Christians contrasted. While the contrasts between Israel, Gentiles, and the church are severally important, the crux of the argument is the contrast between spiritual Israel, that is, those who have become Christians, and Gentile Christians. The twofold origin of Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians is obvious to all. In the attempt to disfranchise Israel of her promises, however, some amillenarians claim that the church, composed of both Gentiles and Jews, takes Israel’s place of blessing completely. It is pointed out that there has always been an inner circle of Israelites who were the “true Israel” and that these were the genuine inheritors of the promises, not the nation as a whole. It is the purpose of this discussion to inquire into only one phase of the problem—Is the church ever identified with true or spiritual Israel, that is, are Gentile Christians ever included in the designation Israel? The problem of whether the church actually inherits Israel’s promises and realizes them is reserved for later treatment.
Two principal passages are the foundation for the discussion. In Romans 9-11 the problem comes up repeatedly. In Romans 9:6 it is revealed: “For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel.” Those who have opposed a future for Israel find in this passage a proof-text for their theory that only a portion of Israel, that is, those who are “spiritual,” inherit the promises, and the rest are excluded from the promises. An examination of this passage, however, will reveal that the real contrast is not between those who inherit Abraham’s promises and those who do not. It is rather that the promises to Abraham are classified as belonging either to Israel according to the flesh or Israel which enters into the spiritual promises by faith—which are given also to Gentile believers (Gal 3:6-9, 14). It is not, therefore, a contrast between those who are excluded and those who are included, but rather a contrast between those who inherit only the national promises and those who inherit the spiritual promises. The line of national promises is narrowed to Isaac and his seed (Rom 9:7), and the line of spiritual promises is narrowed to those who believe. In the present age, Israel as a nation is blinded, which blindness will be lifted. As individuals, Israelites who believe belong to the election of grace (Rom 11:5-10). Both Israelites in the flesh (unbelievers) and Israelites who believe are genuine Israelites. They are sharply distinguished as to present blessings. Unbelieving Israelites are lost and blinded, while believing Israelites come into all the present blessings of the church. The distinction is always on the ground of whether or not they believe in Christ, not on whether they are true Israelites.
The second principal passage is found in Galatians 6:15-16, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.” It has been alleged on the basis of this passage that the church as such is specifically called the “Israel of God.” To this is opposed the fact that everywhere else in the Scriptures the term Israel is applied only to those who are the natural seed of Abraham and Isaac, never to Gentiles. If it can be sustained that in this passage the church is called Israel, it would, of course, be an argument for the identification of the church with Israel in the present age—though by no means conclusive, in the face of constant use of the term Israel in the Scriptures in reference to unbelieving Jews. An examination of Galatians 6:15-16, however, instead of proving any such identification is rather a specific instance where Jewish believers are distinguished from Gentile believers, and this by the very term Israel of God. Old Testament. It had always been limited to those who were genuine believers in the true God. Further, the “kingdom of God” is not to be identified with the millennial kingdom prophesied for Israel and the Gentile nations, though the millennial kingdom is an important manifestation and phase of the kingdom of God.
The declaration of Christ in this passage resolves itself into an affirmation that the unbelieving scribes and Pharisees would never be saved because of their rejection of the “son” of the “householder,” and that others would take their place. Gaebelein suggests that the “nation” which will take their place will be other Israelites: “The nation to whom the Lord promises the Kingdom is not the Church. The Church is called the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, the Habitation of God by the Spirit, the Lamb’s Wife, but never a nation. The nation is Israel still, but that believing remnant of the nation, living when the Lord comes.”7
The second major passage bearing on this problem is Romans 11:1-32. This chapter deals with the question whether God has cast off Israel. To this leading question Paul replies in positive terms, “God forbid.” His argument may be summarized as a denial of this question. God has not cast away His people. There has always been a remnant in every age true to God. The unbelief of the nation Israel has never caused God to cast off His people as a whole (Rom 11:3-4). There has always been a continuing program for Israel as witnessed in the present election of grace. Some Jews are being saved. While unbelieving Jews are blinded now, their present blindness will be lifted and replaced by sight and faith. When this glad day comes “all Israel shall be saved” (Rom 11:26), meaning a group or national deliverance in contrast to the individual salvation offered now. At that time God’s covenants with Israel will be fulfilled, for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance, sure and irrevocable. The whole tenor of the chapter is against either the idea that Israel has lost all future hope of fulfillment of their promises through cancellation or that the church has received these promises and Israel is disinherited.
On the basis of this brief study of terminology, the evidence has been examined and found to produce nothing indicating that the term Israel is ever used of Gentiles. Rather it is used of the godly remnant in all ages, Christian Jews, and the future national entity anticipated through the Scriptures. None of these usages support the amillennial contention that Israel has no national future. With this as a foundation, Israel’s precise promises relative to the land, her regathering and repossession of it, may be considered.
Dallas, Texas
(Series to be continued in the July-September Number, 1952)
This article was taken from the Theological Journal Library CD and posted with permission of Galaxie Software.
1 Albertus Pieters, The Seed of Abraham, pp. 19-20.
2 Oswald T. Allis, Prophecy and the Church, p. 218.
3 Charles Hodge, Commentary on Romans, p. 589.
4 William Hendriksen, And So All Israel Shall Be Saved, p. 33.
6 The Israel Promises and Their Fulfillment (London: John Bale, Sons & Danielsson, Ltd., 1936), p. 78.
7 A. C. Gaebelein, The Gospel of Matthew (New York: Our Hope, 1910), II, 138.
know nothings are called know nothings for a reason.
Those New Moons, Sabbaths and Feast were the appointed times YHWH gave Israel for worship..
Ezekiel and Isaiah plainly state that New Moons And Sabbaths will be around awhile in the Kingdom.
They are shadows and rehearsals now.. and they point exactly to the Messiah of Israel and the Kingdom.
Which is kind of the point as they also can point away from what Christendom teaches and worships from..
Those New Moons, sabbaths and feasts don’t point to the greco roman latin savior or the greco roman latin church that has been a vessel to hide those worship days He gave Israel in Torah..
So Torah that became flesh has been morphed into a greco roman latin savior with counterfeit birthday, death day and resurrection day.
That is an awful lot of counterfeits to believe in and worship from to still be considered a bride..
Central part of Revelation is about worship..
Who, what and when one worships..
we see it in chapter 13...
The first four commandments are actually highlighted as something the beast will get people to break..
That isn’t some future event.. it is happening today... and it can start with what some call holy and what Scripture calla holy.
To be fair, one cannot even find His Sabbath with just the sun., it takes that moon up in the sky too. But the world’s pope gregory calendar is sun based standard the world runs on...
That is a lot of greco roman latin influence on the world..prophectic maybe as we near the end.
People may read revelation differently...or they dont see the world as one big counterfeit..
Bottom line, maybe the greco roman latin jesus is just a counterfeit.. a pseudo Christ.. an in place of Christ or instead of messiah..
The New Moons, Sabbaths and Feasts are just some confirmation markers one can see where Torah really became flesh and dwelt among us..
And see how flimsy those greco roman latin counterfeits don’t stack up to the genuine..
It is the ultimate prove all things..
And for folks who don’t want their world rocked , christmas and easter and saturday or sunday sabbath days are for them..
And it is by His Grace that I have never been more free and less enslaved to the world..
Tomorrow is a weekly Sabbath day on our Heavenly Father’s calendar.. the world calls it Woden’s Day and more than likely a regular work day..
Not sure what Wooden did to deserve a day every week but maybe somebody can ask the folks in Rome about their calendar.
I would not dismiss taking a hard look at the types and shadows as Messiah fulfilled the spring festivals literally and completely. We should expect that at the second advent He will do so with the other festivals...literal fulfillment.
On another note, please understand the other posters pinged to this post are not of the same cloth of the poster you have been debating. They believe the shed royal Blood of Yeshua HaMashiach cleanses all sins.
Paul tells the Colossians in chapter 2 this:
16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. 18 Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.(LEB)
So for those who do follow such out of love and obedience to God, we should respect such.
In fact, the 'moedim' (Holy Days)... the word in Hebrew means something very close to 'rehearsals', rather than the definition you and I would normally assume. They are not without prophetic value. They are about 'stuff that is going to happen'. You quoted Paul in Col 2 where He says (years after the ascension) that these are 'shadows of good things to come. If it is 'to come', Paul can hardly mean to ignore them, as Christianity plainly does... (And I dare say that I and my fellows read Col 2 much differently than y'all do).
Rather, this same Paul says to the Thessalonians:
1Th 5:1 But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.
1Th 5:2 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
1Th 5:3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
1Th 5:4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
1Th 5:5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
1Th 5:6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
(e-Sword:KJV)
These 'Times and Seasons' ARE the moedim - The Holy Days of YHWH, to include the Jubilees. And Paul says that the Thessalonians need not be told - They already KNOW. And THAT they know, is the difference between light and darkness - Again, MANY years after the Ascension.
So unless you, or one of our FRiends can show me that these Holy days and seasons have reached their perfect and exactingly incremental fulfillment (beyond the ascension, mind you), which *none* will be able to do, I will remain obliged to pay very close attention to what YHWH has intended.
Here is Jim Staley talking about it. He is Two-House Messianic, but pretty easy for all Christians to listen to. poke here
My faith is the finished work in the Messiah of Israel, my savior, Yahshua.. English Joshua works too.
There are no works that can save us..
but, in observing His calendar and rejecting the pope gregory calendar, I have been blessed to see what is counterfeit and what is genuine and what one has their ‘faith’ in could be a very troubling revelation for believers like it was for me..
and what has happened is the Torah has been erased out of the Savior..
Torah that became flesh and dwelt among us is exactly what happened..
Something a christian could skim over while reading is when Israel was commanded to circumcise their boys on the 8th day- but everything even circumcision points to their Messiah.
That 8th day means nothing to the pope gregory calendar. It means nothing to the Jewish calculate calendars..
But to the calendar template He details in Ezekiel 46, that 8th day is a Sabbath every month (and if one is born on a New Moon Day, they get circumcised on a Sabbath)
new Moon day- day 1
Six work days- days 2-7
Seventh day sabbath (8th day of month)
If one ignores the new moon day then they ignore many scriptures that detail that day. That is exactly what happens with the pope gregory calendar and nothing conforms one to the world more than they way the world tells time...
So what is described in revelation 12? A new Moon day. I don’t know if because I am a brilliant astronomer. I found an application that showed the course of the sun,moon stars and planets in the sky’s movement and match it up with what I was observing with His calendar. He will teach us all things is we ask, seek and knock..
People have struggled with what a New Moon is-invisible, crescent, full..
Scripture confirms it if we let it all point to Him..
The Messiah, according to that biblical sign, was born on the 1st day of the 6th month.
That means nothing on the pope Gregory calendar.
But on His calendar, Torah became flesh jumps out at us.
That sign in the sky represented the 6th month if the Ram/Lamb sign in the sky represented the Passover month.
It would mean that the Messiah was born on an Appointed day (New Moon day), circumcised on the 8th day ( weekly Sabbath according to Ezekiel’s template)
It would also mean that Miriam was unclean for 40 days and then the Messiah was dedicated in the temple.
40 days from the 1st day of the 6th month is the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, the 10th day of the 7th month.
Is it possible that the bride can know all these things? Or would it surprise believers that Torah was fulfilled spiritually and literally?
We have a picture of the next major event as the Messiah’s life as His baptism.
We have a note that He was 30. We also have after the baptism the story of 40 days of purification where He was tempted.
Is it out of the realm of possibility He was baptized on an appointed day (New Moon Day- His 30th birthday) and the 40 days is a shadow from His mother’s purification ?
We know the story of His death, burial and resurrection all occuring on Feasts Days and Sabbaths, appointed days of the 14th, 15th and 16th days of His first month.
Christendom has decemeber 25 and good Friya goddess and easter sun’s day as their holy days for Jesus.
Let me ask a pointed question,, is it possible that the Greco roman Latin Jesus is different than the Messiah of Israel, Torah that became flesh and dwelt among us, because he reflects none of those appointed days in Torah?
Where is one’s faith? The church teachings and practices? If Jesus is a counterfeit of the genuine, where does one go to redeem a counterfeit? What does it say about worshipping falsely?
I don’t believe observing these days will save a soul.. but not knowing them or testing and proving all things including the core of one’s faith, may lead one to worship the beast, and maybe even defend the enemy, not in some future date but today...
I am no longer confident that the Jesus taught and worshipped in christian churches is the real, genuine Messiah..
And we all meet Him as Jesus.. but He hasn’t let me stay there. Praise Yah!
The days of saturday, sunday , december 25, good friya day and easter snday are not truth..
I don’t say it to be a troll or to get people riled up.. I say it because they are not biblical. And it may cause one to worship the wrong savior, the fake one..
Worship and proper worship is a rather big topic in the last book of Revelation.. about 25 times a form of that word is used...
I worry about bible believers believing a false premise and then arguing from there..
The false premise being that the greco roman latin mother church represents anything regarding the True Messiah of Israel. The only part they can declare truth with is the actual words, but counterfeit bills aren’t going to have misspellings or foreign words on their face either.
And if she doesn’t, neither does her daughters.
but those daughters argue like she does have a standing.
And without knowing all that He has led me to and taught me, I would be arguing with those daughters against the mother church today, if not for His Amazing Grace!
HalleluYah!
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