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There are many Amillenialists who still believe that there is some future for the Jews. They read Romans 9-11 and can't help but see that Paul still believes there is a future for the Jews, maybe it's not in the promise of an eternal land, but the Church hasn't entirely replaced Israel as the recipients of God's blessing.
Likewise there are many Dispensationalists like myself who believe that the idea that God has two separate programs that are unrelated for the Jews and the Church is a line drawn too bold and too black. I don't like the idea of a parenthesis as if God made a mistake and since many Jews rejected Jesus, God suddenly came up with the Church idea. While I do see the church as a mystery (something not fully revealed in the OT) I don't see it as not being God's purpose all along. Paul's analogy of a natural olive tree fits the scenario the best. In the outworking of God's blessing many of the natural branches of the olive tree (the Jewish people) were cut off (they didn't believe in the Messiah) and wild olive branches (Gentiles) were grafted in (they believed in Jesus). Paul makes it clear that those natural olive branches can very easily be grafted back into the tree of blessing, in fact, they should take to the tree of blessing more easily as a natural olive branch, they were the first ones to receive the oracles of God.
In the outworking of God's economy He wanted to reveal Himself to all the people He had created. He chose to make Abraham a nation through which all nations could be blessed. Much of that has been accomplished. But much of it has not been. When we look at the OT prophecies literally it appears that the Messiah would rule the nation of Israel from Jerusalem, with spiritual blessing for all the earth.
It appears that Christ did indeed inaugurate the New Covenant, but did not fully fulfill it. This is the very point we disagree on. I would appear that Jer. 31 had the idea that all Israel would come under the New Covenant and be saved. All Israel did not do this, some branches were cut off and didn't believe. But Paul says that All Israel will be saved. Clearly from Hebrews the Church participates in the New Covenant, but Hebrews, while fully extolling all the benefits the Church receives from the New Covenant, still quotes Jer. 31 that the houses of Israel and Judah will be the beneficiaries of this covenant.
There are only two possibilities, either the definition of Israel and Judah from the book of Jeremiah (which all would agree meant physical people of Israel and Judah) was changed to a spiritual definition, meaning spiritual descendants of Israel and Judah, or the definition did not change.
I'm inclined to believe that the definition did not change, because if God changed the meaning to a meaning that there was no way Jeremiah's readers and hearers could possibly have understood, then what's to say God can't change the meaning of words we read in the NT on us? There is no surety if God can change the meaning of words as we would be expected to understand them.
There is continuity in God's plan and there is distinction, may we all have the wisdom to be discerning.
Likewise there are many Dispensationalists like myself who believe that the idea that God has two separate programs that are unrelated for the Jews and the Church is a line drawn too bold and too black. I don't like the idea of a parenthesis as if God made a mistake and since many Jews rejected Jesus, God suddenly came up with the Church idea. While I do see the church as a mystery (something not fully revealed in the OT) I don't see it as not being God's purpose all along. Paul's analogy of a natural olive tree fits the scenario the best. In the outworking of God's blessing many of the natural branches of the olive tree (the Jewish people) were cut off (they didn't believe in the Messiah) and wild olive branches (Gentiles) were grafted in (they believed in Jesus). Paul makes it clear that those natural olive branches can very easily be grafted back into the tree of blessing, in fact, they should take to the tree of blessing more easily as a natural olive branch, they were the first ones to receive the oracles of God.
In the outworking of God's economy He wanted to reveal Himself to all the people He had created. He chose to make Abraham a nation through which all nations could be blessed. Much of that has been accomplished. But much of it has not been. When we look at the OT prophecies literally it appears that the Messiah would rule the nation of Israel from Jerusalem, with spiritual blessing for all the earth.
It appears that Christ did indeed inaugurate the New Covenant, but did not fully fulfill it. This is the very point we disagree on. I would appear that Jer. 31 had the idea that all Israel would come under the New Covenant and be saved. All Israel did not do this, some branches were cut off and didn't believe. But Paul says that All Israel will be saved. Clearly from Hebrews the Church participates in the New Covenant, but Hebrews, while fully extolling all the benefits the Church receives from the New Covenant, still quotes Jer. 31 that the houses of Israel and Judah will be the beneficiaries of this covenant.
There are only two possibilities, either the definition of Israel and Judah from the book of Jeremiah (which all would agree meant physical people of Israel and Judah) was changed to a spiritual definition, meaning spiritual descendants of Israel and Judah, or the definition did not change.
I'm inclined to believe that the definition did not change, because if God changed the meaning to a meaning that there was no way Jeremiah's readers and hearers could possibly have understood, then what's to say God can't change the meaning of words we read in the NT on us? There is no surety if God can change the meaning of words as we would be expected to understand them.
There is continuity in God's plan and there is distinction, may we all have the wisdom to be discerning.
B
Do you think that God made a mistake when he created man? Well, when the imaginations of the heart of men were only evil continually during the time of Noah, it had repented the Lord that he had made man and was going to destroy man and all until Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. He did destroy all but eight souls in the ark. Read it for yourself, it's in Gen 6. If you remember when God created man on the sixth day that he looked upon him and said it was very good (Gen 1:31). God created man and then decided that he was gong to destroy man whom he created because he has corrupted himself with imaginations of evil. Is that too bold and black for you to see that the Lord REPENTED that he had ever made man? Here is the verse where g=God states it in black and white... maybe you missed this in the beginning.
Gen 6:5-8 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.6 And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
7 And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
In the beginning God REPENTED (was grief stricken with sorrow) that he had created man. Do you think that God is capable of changing his mind through REPENTANCE? I do, but you may not and you may want to change the meaning of this text in Gen 6 if you want, but it is there for everyone to read and understand through the Holy Spirit. Are you going to tell us that when Christ came the first time unto his own, who had rejected and crucified him, that it went just as planned? Did the creation of man go just as planned when man fell in the garden and sin entered the human race and all thereafter were conceived in sin? Perhaps you need to reconsider some things and there are other examples where God changed his mind about what he was going to do and when he did it was perfect and just.
Gen 6:5-8 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.6 And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
7 And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
In the beginning God REPENTED (was grief stricken with sorrow) that he had created man. Do you think that God is capable of changing his mind through REPENTANCE? I do, but you may not and you may want to change the meaning of this text in Gen 6 if you want, but it is there for everyone to read and understand through the Holy Spirit. Are you going to tell us that when Christ came the first time unto his own, who had rejected and crucified him, that it went just as planned? Did the creation of man go just as planned when man fell in the garden and sin entered the human race and all thereafter were conceived in sin? Perhaps you need to reconsider some things and there are other examples where God changed his mind about what he was going to do and when he did it was perfect and just.
B
like the rapture?
....lol.
....lol.
I understand very well that no one has perfect understanding but when a faulty premise has provided a framework for knowledge to be understood, the Spirit is neglected in guiding the mind and heart into the truth of what has been revealed in the written word and it does not become the living word because it has produced a soulish faith to live by. When we adhere to and operate in our understanding upon the premise that the 70 weeks of Daniel's vision concerning the Jews and Jerusalem as having already been fulfilled, that effects our understanding in so many other areas of the word and doctrine which has developed into a framework of knowledge whereby we must strive to make every single inference from the scriptures fit into that framework for it to make sense to us.
If we are wrong about a single inference it knocks everything else out of balance and we have to reset our thinking back to that place where we might have gone wrong. It is an endless battle that frustrates and grieves the Spirit from being able to reveal truth to the mind and heart without the mind of the flesh striving for it. We learn the truth by receiving grace and allowing the Holy Spirit to coordinate our thinking by quickening us in our human spirit with the words of life instead of being stimulated in the mindset of our soulish nature that consumes knowledge upon the lust of the flesh. If we are not Spirit taught we will function in the appetites and desires of the soulish nature that continually strives to know who God is through the letter instead of the Spirit that gives life and makes us alive unto God.
Heb 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
God's repented, changed His mind, is sorrowful in response to what mankind does. He is fully capable of responding, He is not impassive. But when one starts to say that God is surprised by something it implies that He didn't know what would happen, and how can an omniscient God be surprised? He can't. When one talks of the infinite attributes of God it is often hard for us to understand the way they all work. To say that God changes His mind in the way finite man changes his mind is an impossibility. No Dispensational founding author ever meant that when God changed His plan that He wasn't completely sovereign and omnipotent and omniscient. The plan was changed because of man.
I would agree that what would have been best and what God would have wanted is for all the Jews of Jesus' day to repent and believe. Messiah could have died and become King. But the church age is not a 2000 year long tangent because God didn't know what would happen, no. Let God be God and every man a liar. God knows the end from the beginning.
I believe in dispensational theology because God is responding to man, and man to God, not because God's working it out but gets surprised along the way.
I would agree that what would have been best and what God would have wanted is for all the Jews of Jesus' day to repent and believe. Messiah could have died and become King. But the church age is not a 2000 year long tangent because God didn't know what would happen, no. Let God be God and every man a liar. God knows the end from the beginning.
I believe in dispensational theology because God is responding to man, and man to God, not because God's working it out but gets surprised along the way.