!HALLELUJAH!
!HALLELUJAH!
Posted on 05/21/2011 4:46:26 AM PDT by marbren
well said!
GiovannaNicoletta wrote:
“I simply cannot discard any passage of Scripture ...”
Nor can I.
GN also wrote:
“I simply don’t see what you see.”
No, clearly not.
I will not belabor this, since I do not think wrangling between Christians does much good. Better that people sit back and contemplate seriously arguments that do not agree with their own. Whenever one deals with the Holy Scriptures one walks the territory of the Holy Spirit, who alone enlightens in spiritual matters.
I will only restate summarily what I said before: I see a point of theological imbalance in millenialist/dispensationalist theology that corresponds to a similar point of imbalance in Roman Catholic theology. In both cases and for at least similarly understandable reasons, each has assigned an importance to one of the necessary precursors to the promised Christ that it insists must be recognized in addition to and as being, at least somewhat, independent of Christ. In the case of the millenialist/dispensationalist it is Israel and in the case of Roman Catholicism it is Mary.
God specially chose each to serve His will in bringing about the incarnation of His eternal Son for the purpose of reconciling sinful mankind to Him. The choice of each was purely one of grace alone, without any merit or worthiness in either. To each was accorded high honor to the point where one can rightly say there is no people more highly honored of God than Israel and there is no woman more highly honored of God than Mary. These two points are indisputably true and firmly grounded in the Holy Scriptures. But just as Mary has no importance or glory apart from Christ, neither does Israel. Israel is no more a nation different in the eyes of God from all others than Mary is the queen of heaven. Apart from Christ neither has any glory or standing before God.
In a similar way, John the Baptizer is the greatest of all the prophets only because of His proximity to the Christ. Capernaum and Bethsaida were exalted to heaven, as no other cities on earth, but only because they were the residences of the Christ leading up to and including His earthly ministry.
When Jesus asserted, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me,” (John 5:39) He was saying something more profound than any of us will ever fully grasp. The bottom line is that there is nothing in Scripture, nothing, that is not about Christ. It saddens me that you, apparently, do not see that.
As a postscript I note that in the historic general prayer of the church of the Reformation, i.e. Lutheran, there is this sentence: “Send forth laborers into Your harvest and open the door of faith unto all unbelievers and unto the people of Israel.” What other people on earth occupy so special a place in the hearts of all who bend the knee at the name of Jesus? No, God is not finished with Israel, but not in the way you seem to assert.
So, we do disagree, as you correctly point out. But I will disagree with your statement: “We’ll have to disagree on this.” I say that we will not have to, and aver that one day, we will not.
Thank you for your civility and soft reply. God’s richest blessings.
We are adults that can reason.Just for fun, How do we know kids, angels, demons, ET's are not posting on FR?
Or, ELIZA like conversation generators?
“civility and soft reply”
you are lucky not to be accused of being Anti-Jewish, just because you apparently are very orthodox in your understanding of who “Israel” is in the Bible.
Just posting a positive thought. Tired of fighting. Everyone is right at some point in time.
“civility and soft reply”
This is in reference to her previous reply to me, which was very civil and soft. Disagreement does not always have to be disagreeable.
oh i know what it meant. i am merely pointing out you are lucky not to be “anti-jewish” for pointing out the “Israel” of God is the Church not physical Jews. read the whole thread.
“...read the whole thread.”
I did.
ok, just wanted you to be aware of what you are dealing with.
Interesting.
Do you believe in the Rapture?
Do you accept Jesus as your personal savior, or is it Mohamed,Allah, Budda, Jehovah, or Joey Smith, or some other unknown god?
If Jesus, do you believe in the bodily resurrection and trinity
Perhaps you wish to invoke the 5th Amendment.
Welllllllll
I think Giovanna Nicoletta is quite right on such matters.
This article is a good documentation of the BIBLICAL TRUTHS on the issues:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2709853/posts
I. The Basis for the Belief in the Messianic Kingdom
Premillennialists have often been criticized for basing their belief in a Millennium entirely on one passage of Scripture, Revelation 20. Because it is found in a book well noted for its high use of symbols, they say it is foolish to take the one thousand years literally.
But that is hardly a valid criticism. To begin with, while it is true that the Book of Revelation uses many symbols, it has already been shown that the meaning of all those symbols is explained either within the Book of Revelation itself or elsewhere in the Scriptures.
Furthermore, never are years used in a symbolic way in this book. If they are symbolic, the symbolism is nowhere explained. The mention of 1,260 days, 42 months, and 3½ years are all literal and not symbolic.
Hence, there is no need to take the one thousand years as anything but literal years. The desire to spiritualize the text always places the burden of proof on the interpreter. Without objective proof it will result in a subjective interpretation.
Oh, and I wasn’t addressing you in that post. Butt out.
Interesting ... you must really have not liked posts 555 and 582. Why don’t you respond to what I said there, before the subject is changed to Revelation 20, of which I said nothing?
Do you believe in rapture?
Do you believe in the bodily resurrection?
Do you believe in the Trinity?
Do you believe in the speaking of tongues?
Do you think Sunday is the Sabbath or some other day?
you misunderstand Catholic teaching if you are saying in this post that we believe Mary has importance or glory apart from Christ. we honor Mary for the important role she played in salvation, but without Jesus, Mary was a human being like everyone else. As the Church prays at each Mass “ Thru Him, With Him and in Him” ( maybe the Lutherans kept that beautiful prayer, i hope so )
As a matter of fact, it does.
My dear “one Lord one faith one baptism,” I don’t misunderstand Roman Catholic teaching in regard to Mary at all, and my comparison of Catholic/Mary to Dispensationalist/Israel is spot on. You have just as much trouble seeing your side’s imbalance as the dispensationalists have in seeing theirs. Both of you are misreading the Holy Scriptures it regard to the proper relationship of Mary/Israel to the Christ. You easily see the problem on their part with Israel. They easily see the problem on your part with Mary.
Yet, there are true believers on both sides despite the imbalance ... and there are unbelievers on both sides as well.
As you say . . . such wrangling rarely enlightens.
I have enough other priorities, I’m not that eager to get into such at the moment.
Clearly we disagree.
For example,
I do not remotely consider Israel to be a parallel to Mary as you noted.
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