Posted on 12/11/2004 12:20:16 PM PST by Presby Conservative
Israel has no more claim on God's promises and blessing than Paraguay December 10, 2004 In the wake of the General Assembly action calling for divestiture of holdings in some companies doing business with the government of Israel, there has been a disturbing amount of theological ignorance displayed in the pages of The Layman. I refer to prooftexting from Old Testament verses in which the Lord promises blessing and protection for Israel. The assumption of many writers, both clergy and laypeople, seems to be that the Israel of the Old Covenant and the modern state of Israel are, if not one and the same, at least equal in God's purview and interest. This line of thinking is quite contrary to the Reformed theological tradition, and most other theological traditions as well.
Our Bibles are divided into the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament, the blessings of God were poured out the Old Covenant people – the Jews. In the New Testament, since the Old Covenant has been fulfilled in the incarnation and the veil of the temple torn in two, God's blessing is on the people of the New Covenant, the church. The nation of Israel has completed its divine purpose by producing the promised Messiah. The modern state of Israel shares only a name with the Bibilical nation of the Hebrews and has no more claim on God's promises and blessing than Paraguay. Simply stated, in Jesus Christ the church is the new Israel. Circumcision was the sign of the Old Covenant, baptism is the sign of the New Covenant.
What may be at work here is the insidious influence of dispensationalism, a theological system arising in Britain in the 1830s, largely through the writing of J.N. Darby, and popularized by the Scofield Bible. Dispensationalism denies the finality of the New Covenant and teaches that God's working with humanity is vested in Israel and that at some future date the temple will be rebuilt, sacrifices reinstituted, and the Law of Moses restored. Dispensationalists take wholesale the references to Israel in the Old Testament prophets, read them literally, and apply them to contemporary Israel. There are those holding to a Reformed/Presbyterian theology, myself included, who see Dispensationalism as heretical on its face because it denies the sufficiency of Jesus' death and resurrection for the sins of humankind: Jesus came to fulfill the Old Covenant, not to interrupt it. In our generation, the most popular treatments of Dispensationalism are The Late, Great Planet Earth and the Left Behind Series. These books are an intriguing stew of equal parts of The National Inquirer, the Scofield Bible and Jeanne Dixon.
The Layman has a marvelous educational opportunity to perform a great service for its readers and also the entire denomination by running a series of articles "God and the Nations: A Reformed Understanding." This might help us get over the notion that any critical statement opposing, or action taken, not in the partisan interests of the government of Israel is somehow an attack on God's chosen people. (The Rev.) Deane A. Kemper Mt. Pleasant, S.C.
I'm going to go on now before this thing gets rolling and point out that the PCUSA is a very liberal organization, much like the Democratic Party while Presbyterian Church of America consists of believing Christians who are conservative in their moral values and (more than not) their politics. Please don't lump all Presbyterians together.
I reject this hackneyed so-called argument totally, and absolutely and uncompromisingly. Fortunately the writer was thoughtful enough to place it at the beginning of his argument.
Avoiding, for the moment, the clear problem of religion generally and questions of faith particularly, most reasonable people would defer to the oldest source.
It is as if we were asked to accept as more authoritative, a modern "version" of the Constitution, revised and clarified by perverts, deviants and other criminals.
That dog won't hunt.
Why exactly are they doing this? Do they object to Israel defending herself (like the building of the fence, for instance)? Are they offended by Israel's close ties to the Bush Administration?
I would add on to this comment and also point out that there is a substantial and growing number of PCUSA churches comprised of believing Christians who have joined the "Confessing Church Movement," which seeks to turn back the revisionists in PCUSA.
Needless to say, they take a dim view of anti-Semitic teaching such as appears in this article. The argument that the Jews were made unnecessary and discarded by God in the New Testament has been the rationale for anti-Jewish pogroms and the holocaust. The statements in this article are not quite that strong, but that is the ultimate logic that underlies them.
There are many believing Christians even in PCUSA. The problem is the leadership and national bureacracy have been taken over by left-wing seminary graduates whose goal is to merge the PCUSA with the even more liberal UCC (United Church of Christ). As such, they reflect the growing anti-semitism of the Left.
The only people who disagree with this are muslims and bigots.
I'm sorry. Does rejecting the Dispensationalist view in favor of the Covenant Theology (Reformed) view automatically make one anti-Semitic and in the same boat as leftists and Nazis?
"Does rejecting the Dispensationalist view in favor of the Covenant Theology (Reformed) view automatically make one anti-Semitic and in the same boat as leftists and Nazis?"
No, what the Rev. Kemper is doing is disguising anti-Semitic teaching as "Reformed theology," and then further states that anyone who believes otherwise is a "dispensationalist."
No, rejecting the dispensationalist view does not make one anti-Semitic. However, this action, and others, of the PCUSA, a Reformed Theology denomination, is the result of anti-Semitism in the leadership of that church IMO. Any organization that condemns and economically punishes Israel for defending itself against fanatical Islamic terrorism is in the anti-Semitic "boat" AFAIC.
I emphatically reject any doctrine that claims God's promises to Israel were not unconditional and eternal, but I can still fellowship with other Christians who hold to that doctrine. What I can't tolerate or compromise with is the notion that the modern nation of Israel is an alien intruder on Arab lands. That false premise is clearly contradicted by history and by God's own word. Any organization or nation that persecutes Israel or the Jews in general is poking it's finger in God's eye, and history is littered with the wreckage of those nations which have done so.
Whether Israel (the nation or people) has completed its divine purpose or not is not for us to say.
Funny, I just can't seem to find that verse that speaks about ' the Paraguayians first and also the Gentile'.
I am a Gentile by birth but consider myself a Jew as I am of the Covenant of faith and not the Law. However the land of Israel is holy and Jerusalem is holy. When Jesus returns to Jerusalem there will be peace there and also in the world, but it will start in Jerusalem.
Proverbs 27:20 Sheol and destruction are insatiable; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.
Proverbs 30:15-17 The leech hath two daughters: Give, give. There are three things never satisfied; four which say not, It is enough: --Sheol, and the barren womb; the earth which is not filled with water, and the fire which saith not, It is enough. The eye that mocketh at a father, and despiseth to obey a mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.
Micah 2:7,8 O thou that art named the house of Jacob, Is Jehovah impatient? are these his doings? Do not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly? But of late my people is risen up as an enemy: ye strip off the mantle with the garment from them that pass by securely, that are averse from war.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
"I emphatically reject any doctrine that claims God's promises to Israel were not unconditional and eternal,"
Your statement begs the question of whether the Israelis of today do indeed represent the Israel of the Old Testament and therefore are the inheritors of the covenant promise. The New Testament indicates that the Church is the inheritor. Judaism began a great split with the coming of Jesus. Those who accepted him became the Church. As for those who rejected him, Jesus had some harsh words:
John 8:39-45 They answered and said to Him, "Abraham is our father."
Jesus said to them, "If you are Abraham's children, do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do. You are doing the deeds your father."
They said to Him, "We were not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God."
Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me.
"Why do not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word.
"You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand for the truth, because there is not truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature; for he is a liar and the father of lies.
"But because I speak the truth, you do not believe me."
Gosh, that sure is really, really impressive.
It is as if we were asked to accept as more authoritative, a modern "version" of the Constitution, revised and clarified by perverts, deviants and other criminals.
Actually, it's nothing whatsoever like that.
Land begins to those who can hold it, regardless of what some tired, shopworn myths might happen to purport. As long as Israel can hold the territory it has, it, or anyone else, can make as many dim-bulb claims as desired. If it can't hold on it, then it can't hold on to it, and new, equally ridiculous claims can then be made by those who take it.
25For (A)I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this (B)mystery--so that you will not be (C)wise in your own estimation--that a partial (D)hardening has happened to Israel until the (E)fullness of the Gentiles has come in;
26 and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written,
"(F)THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION,
HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB."
27"(G)THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM,
(H)WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS."
DG (See tag line.)
"They are not all Israel who are called Israel..."
I'm sorry if I offend anyone but this man is a spoon fed idiot.
Isaiah 49: 13 Sing, O heavens! Be joyful, O earth! And break out in singing, O mountains! For the LORD has comforted His people, And will have mercy on His afflicted. 14 But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me, And my Lord has forgotten me." 15 "Can a woman forget her nursing child, And not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, Yet I will not forget you. 16 See, I have inscribed you on the palms [of My hands;] Your walls [are] continually before Me.
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