GiovannaNicoletta wrote:
“That is all that is required to understand. That while God has taken for Himself a people from among the Gentiles, Scripture is inarguable that God is not finished with the Jews, and has not thrown them to the side in favor of the Church. The Church and Israel are two separate entities with two separate purposes in the economy of God.”
I’m sorry, but what you say in this final paragraph of your kind reply to my two questions I just cannot reconcile with the Holy Scriptures. In saying that, please understand what I am not saying. I am NOT asserting that: 1) God has thrown the Jews to the side in favor of the church. That is the wrong way to speak of these things. God never throws to the side anyone who is His by faith. Nor does the grace of God fail to extend over all. The testimony of the Christ Himself makes that clear: “For God so loved the world ...” NOR am I saying that: 2) God has finished with the Jews. That too would not be the right way to speak of such things.
But I cannot reconcile the separateness you assert regarding Israel and the church with the testimony of the Bible. Jew and Gentile are one in Christ. On the other side of the coin I also cannot reconcile with the testimony of the Holy Scriptures the oft asserted claim of Roman Catholicism that the church came into existence in 33 A.D. That too is the wrong way to speak of such things. The church and believing Israel are one and the same. The only thing that distinguishes one from the other is the incarnation of the Christ.
The church, which the Scriptures themselves define as the community of those who are Christ’s, whether they are in the victorious wing (heaven) or the militant wing (still breathing on earth), has existed from the fall into sin until today, and will endure until the end of time itself. The church’s first confession of faith in the Christ came from the mouth of one who was neither Jew nor Gentile, but the mother of all the living: “I have gotten a man, the LORD.” (Genesis 4:1) And, yes, that is Martin Luther’s translation. And he was correct. She understood that the promise given in Genesis 3:15 entailed God becoming Man. That has always been the faith of the children of God. The church’s first (recorded) gathering in faith to worship the God of grace together was a gathering of those who were neither Jew nor Gentile: The Seth Adamson family together with (presumeably) the Adam Godson family “began to call on the name of the LORD,” (Genesis 4:26) while the Cain Adamson family (presumeably) absented themselves in their unbelief.
The promise that God would become Man in order to redeem humanity from sin, death, and hell is what I would term the scandal of particularity. That is, if God was to become Man, He had to become a particular human being, of a particular sex, born of a particular mother, descended of a particular race, the heir of a particular culture, the speaker of a particular language, and living in a particular place. In other words God had to decide upon and implement the particulars. It could have been, I suppose in theory, any race. But for whatever reason God in His wisdom chose as He did. For which all of humanity should give thanks. Why? He did things the way He did them because He so loved the world. That is all scriptural.
The line of descent He chose had the high honor and the great burden, for that is what the life of the faithful on earth always is, for disciples are never above their Master, of both bearing the Messianic Seed and preserving the Messianic promise, that is, the Holy Scriptures. For all which we simply thank God. Rome has chosen to accord Mary an honor above even that which God gave her. Dispensationists of many stripes have chosen to give Israel an honor above even that which God gave them. Neither is helpful; and both in the end detract from the honor that belongs to God alone.
Blessed be Mary, who indeed is honored above all women. Blessed be Israel, which is honored above all nations. But the glory and honor of each fades to nothing in the light of God’s glory. Thus the saying: SOLI DEO GLORIA!
I simply cannot discard any passage of Scripture, and the overwhelming wealth of Biblical passages which detail God' plans for the nation of Israel, including bringing them back to the land He have them, re-establishing the nation of Israel in one day, forgiving them of their sins - the list is endless- shows us without a doubt that while Christ died on the cross for all mankind, and while He has spent the past 2000 years gathering a people for Himself from the Gentiles (and many Jews as well), God still has plans for the nation of Israel which He not only is in the process now of carrying out, but will continue to fulfill until all of His promises to the Jewish people are kept.
This is quite long but very educational and gives the exhaustive Scripture throughout the Old Testament which shows emphatically God's plans for His people and their roles in the Millennial Kingdom.
It is simply impossible to say that because present-day Jews are, for the most part, living in unbelief that means that God is done with them, especially with the inarguable Biblical passages that contradict that most unfortunate view.
We'll have to disagree on this. I simply don't see what you see.