Posted on 02/22/2025 4:51:37 AM PST by RandFan
I have no idea what Post 34 means. The Catholic Church (for example) has no doctrine that says “the church is Israel.”
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the Disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
To clarify, the overall teaching isn't that "the Church is Israel"; rather, with the promulgation of the New Covenant, the Church is the new Israel. And this teaching (also spoken of analogously as the Church being the seed of Abraham; for if Christ is the singular seed of Abraham and the fulfillment of Messianic prophecy, then that quality also belongs to the Church of which He is the head) is all over the place.
"But it is only in the Gospels that we find definitely and clearly set out the new covenant between God and man; for that covenant which Moses had made between the people of Israel and God was a mere symbol and a sign of the covenant foretold by the prophet Jeremias. We say that this new covenant is that very thing which was established and effected by the work of the Incarnate Word Who is the source of divine grace. This covenant is therefore to be considered incomparably more excellent and more solid because it was ratified, not as in the past by the blood of goats and calves, but by the most precious Blood of Him Whom these same innocent animals, devoid of reason, had already prefigured: “The Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world.” The Christian covenant, much more than that of the old, clearly appears as an agreement based not on slavery or on fear, but as one ratified by that friendship which ought to exist between a father and his children, as one nourished and strengthened by a more generous outpouring of divine grace and truth according to the saying of St. John the Evangelist: “And of his fulness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the Law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”" - Pius XII, Haurietis Aquas, 1956
"For this reason, as soon as We were placed, despite Our unworthiness, on this high See of the prince of the apostles as the representative of the blessed Peter, and received from the eternal Prince of Pastors Himself the most serious divinely given office of feeding and ruling not only the lambs, that is, the whole Christian people, but also the sheep, that is, the bishops, We surely had no greater wish than to address you all with a deep feeling of love. Therefore, since We have now assumed the supreme pontificate in Our Lateran Basilica, We are sending this letter to you without delay, in accordance with the established practice of Our predecessors. Its purpose is to urge that you keep the night-watches over the flock entrusted to your care with the greatest possible eagerness, wakefulness and effort, and that you raise a protecting wall before the House of Israel; do these as you battle with episcopal strength and steadfastness like good soldiers of Christ Jesus against the hateful enemy of the human race." - Pius IX, Qui Pluribus, 1846
"Let us therefore consider what we are taught here; since both those deeds were typical of us, and these words exhort us to recognise ourselves. For if we hold with a firm heart the grace of God which has been given us, we are Israel, the seed of Abraham: unto us the Apostle says, “Therefore are you the seed of Abraham..” ..Let therefore no Christian consider himself alien to the name of Israel. For we are joined in the corner stone with those among the Jews who believed, among whom we find the Apostles chief. Hence our Lord in another passage says, “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, that there may be one fold and one Shepherd.” The Christian people then is rather Israel, and the same is preferably the house of Jacob; for Israel and Jacob are the same. But that multitude of Jews, which was deservedly reprobated for its perfidy, for the pleasures of the flesh sold their birthright, so that they belonged not to Jacob, but rather to Esau. For you know that it was said with this hidden meaning, “That the elder shall serve the younger.”" - St. Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 114, Fifth Century A.D.
"But now he hath obtained a better ministry, by how much also he is a mediator of a better testament, which is established on better promises. For if that former had been faultless, there should not indeed a place have been sought for a second. For finding fault with them, he saith: Behold, the days shall come, saith the Lord: and I will perfect unto the house of Israel, and unto the house of Juda, a new testament: Not according to the testament which I made to their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt: because they continued not in my testament: and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the testament which I will make to the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord: I will give my laws into their mind, and in their heart will I write them: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me from the least to the greatest of them: Because I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins I will remember no more. Now in saying a new, he hath made the former old. And that which decayeth and groweth old, is near its end." - Hebrews 8:6-13
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