Why I now believe that salvation can be lost.

Wait a minute! You just said earlier that the land promise wasn't conditional, but now you're saying that the land promise was conditioned on the repentance of Israel?

Re Rom 4:13: On the other hand the world consists of lots and lots of land. But you are right that the passage speaks to eternal, spiritual salvation -- just as the Abarhamic Covenant is redemptive in nature and speaks to salvation through all its types. The Abrahamic Covenant is an unconditional redemptive covenant whereby God promised to make out of the physical descendants of Abraham a great nation, to bless Abraham himself, make him to be a blessing and that all peoples on earth will be blessed through Abraham (Gen 12:2-3). And in v. 1, Abraham was commanded to go to the land that God would show him. And God's gift of the Land was not conditioned upon anything but God's unilateral promise to give the Land (Gen 15:7-16). The Land was not given due to any merit in Abraham of future merit of his physical descendants (Deut 9:5).

God then unilaterally ratified the covenant made when He alone passed between the fiery pieces of the sacrifice (Gen 15:17-19). However, remaining in the Land required faithfulness, fidelity to the Abrahamic covenant, which was expressed by a second covenant -- the conditional Covenant of Circumcision - which God gave after he ratified his first covenant with Abraham. This Covenant of Circumcision (Gen 17:9-14), as well as the Mosaic Covenant, were both a necessary consequent of the first covenant that was designed to teach Abraham's descendants what God expected of his covenant people who were going to dwell in YHWH's HOLY Land. (Don 't forget: The Mosaic Law Covenant was added precisely because of all Israel's transgressions and so that their sins might increase, ironically (Rom 5:20). God required nothing less than faithful obedience if they were going to remain on YHWH's holy ground (Ex 3:5). Therefore, since the Israelites were generally an apostate, covenant-breaking nation, God drove them from His Holy Land he gave them. It's not God's fault that they were a stubborn, stiff-necked, obstinate people who refused to be faithful. Aslo, the Land does not belong to Israel. Everything upon this earth belongs to God (Ps 24:1). The Israelites were simply stewards of Gods' gift to them, and they blew it big time!

Having said, all that doesn't mean, however, that Abraham's spiritual seed aren't in the Promised Land right now as we speak, and will not continue to be so throughout all eternity. Why? Because the Land, like the sabbath rest of the fourth commandment, is a type of Christ (Heb 4:8). The central aspect to living in the Promised Land was that God's people would be given [physical] rest from their enemies (Josh 21:44). And this is precisely what the spiritual descendants of Abraham have today: SPIRITUAL rest from the devil, from principalities and powers, from the world, from the flesh, from sin, even from the Law which could only condemn because of its weakness through the flesh--from everthing that is hostile towards God. Therefore, in this spiritual sense only -- in the person of the antitype who is Christ -- is the Land promise eternal. But certianly not in any physical sense, as you said above.

More proof of my assertion can be gleaned from this excerpt taken from Reisinger's book "Abraham's Four Seeds":

"In the OT something physical that is said to be forever or everlasting can be temporary in temporal reality as a type, yet literally forever as its antitype in the spiritual, eternal realm.

It is perfectly clear from the NT Scriptures that we must understand the word 'everlasting' in one of two ways depending on the context.

1. It may mean that something is given as a physical and temporary 'type' of something else that is spiritual and eternal. The thing promised becomes truly everlasting as it finds its fulfillment in its antitype. Israel is a nation before God 'forever', as it is fulfilled in the Church, the true 'Israel of God.' Aaron is indeed a priest 'forever' as he finds his fulfillment in Christ our High Priest. The sabbath is a sign 'forever" as it finds its fulfillment in eternal salvation or rest in Christ. God's people will dwell secure in the true holy land forever as they eternally rest in Christ.

2. The word "everlasting" may also mean that something will last as long as the covenant lasts under which that something was instituted. A change in covenants changes everything under that covenant." (Heb 7:11-12).

Things Promised.....................................OT Type.....................................................NT Antitype/Fufulliment

Everlasting Priesthood---------------Aaron (Ex 40:15; Num 25:13)-------Christ (Heb 4:14-16)
Everlasting Sanctuary----------------Tabernacle (Ex 27:21)----------------The Body of Christ (Eph 2:19-22; 2Cor 6:16)
Everlasting Sabbath------------------7th Day (Ex 31:13-17)----------------Salvation Rest (Hebrews 4)
Everlasting Circumcision------------Physical Circumcision (Gen 17:8)--Regeneration (Rom 2:28; Col 2:11; 3:11)
Everlasting Land----------------------Land of Cannan (Gen 13:14-15)-----New Jerusalem (Revelation 21)
Everlasting Nation--------------------Israel (Jer 31:36)----------------------The Church (Mat 21:43; 1Pet 2:9)

Eh? You guys have been messing up the quote coding for some time. Don't blame the software.

That means if the quote system was used properly, nobody would have
to expand the quote box to see what you said in response to someone.

And since you say you have experience with this sort of thing, you should have been fixing
the HTML when you posted and it displayed improperly because of something you did.

Instead messed up posts got quoted again and again, and then it becomes difficult to see who said what.

I chose to not try and fix his misnakes....

MM

I said no such thing.

the LAND PROMISE is not conditional God said I WILL

being blessed by the land promise and being able to live in it is conditional.

If I give you a gift. the gift is yours, Unless it was never a gift to begin with

But I can remove the ability for youi to use the gift.. It does nto mean the gift is not yours. it just means you have no access to it..

thats what Lev 26 is all about


Ahh

so you have no desire to read or look at lev 26 which would prove you wrong.

so be it

Nothing you posted here proves me wrong..

when your ready to actually discuss the land promise. let me know

I am not here to discuss the spiritual promise which is given to all he nations of the world including Isreal and all gentiles. through the seed of abraham.

I already know that is universal.

I try to catch them, sometimes I do not catch them until the 5 minutes are up. then too late to fix.

Scripture is always uncomfortable to those who refuse to accept its most important teachings to us today:

Romans 11:25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.

Ignorance is nowhere else, in relation to any other topic other than this mystery, a matter of one then being labeled as being in his own conceits. Those who scale down this mystery to anything other than its full meaning and definition, are also stuck in their conceits.

1 Timothy 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

This is a summary of what the body of Christ does, and yet so many ignore it, never giving it any thought for the magnitude of its importance, always trying to fit themselves into the Kingdom Gospel, or to combine the Gospel of Grace with the Kingdom Gospel. The error in that belief leads only to confusion and disillusionment, giving rise and support to the many, many falsehoods out there such as Hebrew Roots theology, much of Messianic Judaism, et al.

Colassians 1:24-29
24 Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church:
25 Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God;
26 [Even] the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:
27 To whom God would make known what [is] the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:
29 Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.

The continuation of intermixing truths meant for us today with truths meant for other people in other times, that will continue unabated, with many out there vomiting it all with disregard for the dangers therein by misleading others.

MM

That's basically what I said! The Abrahamic Covenant is an unconditional covenant. However, both the Covenants of Circumcision and the Law of Moses are conditional. And that's what I also basically said. Israel's faithfulness to the covenants was absolutely required to remain in the land.

So, how did God remove Israel's ability to obey the Mosaic Law Covenant, i.e. use the Land?

Also, God kept his promise in Lev 26:45, since he brought both Israel and Judah back to the land twice -- once after the Assyrian captivity and once after the Babylonian captivity.

There's nothing in Lev 26 that proves me wrong. In fact, the chapter and the chapters 28 and 29 in Deut all prove me right: that obedience to the Mosaic Law Covenant was absolutely required to remain in the land.

Nothing you posted here proves me wrong..

I already proved that the Land was a type of spiritual rest that is only found in Christ. I guess you didn't understand Heb 4:8? Do you even know when God spoke "LATER about another [different] day" (obviously later than Joshua and therefore later than the Law was given? And do you know what God promised when he spoke later about another day? And I have proven that "everlasting" or "forever" is often used in the limited sense. What you fail to understand is that the Land was given to Abraham's special seed, which consisted of his natural and spiritual descendants -- with the latter always being God's small remnant!

This is what happens when you Dispens read the OT back into the New! You absolutely get everything backwards. The OT, logically and biblically, must be understood in the scheme of progressive revelation, whereby the NT (or more precisely the New Covenant) more fully reveals the Old through all its many antitypes. The NC is hidden in the Old and Old is revealed in the New. And we see this truth displayed in Gal 3 thru 5, whereby Paul explains the Abrahamic Covenant through the lens of the NC. For your info, the New Covenant is the only true eternal covenant (containing no types!) since in eternity the three persons of the Godhead covenanted together to save mankind. And this NC, which Christ himself embodies, will never end either!

You're so enamored by the gifts and blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant, such as the Land, that you can't see, along with Paul, that Christ is the locus of that covenant. He's at the epicenter of the covenant. He's the warp 'n' of all scripture because the central purpose to the Abrahamic Covenant was so God would make a people for himself through which the promised "seed of the woman" (Gen 3:15) would come into this world so that her "seed" would one day save mankind and crush the head of the serpent! You cannot see the sheer beauty and majesty of the forest, not to mention the incomprable wisdom of God, in his eternal redemptive plan for mankind, because you have your nose so firmly planted in the material blessings instead of the One from whom all blessings flow, i.e. Christ! The physical land that you're so excited and ecstatic about was just a necessary prop in God's grand plan. The physical land was needed so that a physical people would have a place to live in the world. The Law of Moses was neccessary so that the phsycial people could become a peculair nation governed by God's incomprable law. The nation was needed so that the promisef Messiah would have a definite identity with a patricular people. And to make the promised Messiah's identity more certain to all in the world, it was necessary for him to be identified with a particular tribe within that nation. And to narrow it down even further so that there would be absolutely no mistaking the true identity of the Messiah when he arrived in this world, God ordained his Son's family line. An awful lot of phsycial stuff was planned by God so that at the right time, He could get to the real spiritual substance of his salvation -- Christ! Christ is the antitype to both the Sabbath rest AND the Land rest. So Christ is where or focus should be.

Even when God promised Abraham that he would make a great nation from him, so many think God was ultimately referring to Israel or even to Ishmael. But he wasn't! He was alluding, according to the NT, to the NC Church, which is the Body of Christ! Israel was just a vehicle to get to the Body of Christ! Israel was the God-ordained means to the end. Ditto for all the physyical blessings and promises -- they were all means to the utlimate spiritual substance -- Christ! None of this implies that God has now discared Israel like an old rag because Israel has served its purpose. As Paul teaches in Rom 9 thru 11, "all Israel will be saved", according to election. All true Israel that is in phsycial Israel will be saved. The children of the promise will still be saved but not the children according to mere natural descent. Natural descent means nothing spirituall! But at the same time Abraham's spriritual seed consists of one people -- all in the world who have his faith. And this one people share one eternal, spiritual destiny!

Well, I know I have been saved by Grace through faith and that I am right now in Christ's kingdom. After all, Jesus did say that he was taking away the kingdom from Israel and giving it to another nation. Would you happen to know what that nation is?

I would have to ask that you quote the verses you think has Him saying that, and we will take it from there. I have no way of knowing what reference you're speaking upon and its context and to whom it was written.

MM

For contextual purposes I will quote more than the specific passage:

Matt 21:33-46
33 "Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. 34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.

35 "The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Last of all, he sent his son to them. 'They will respect my son,' he said.

38 "But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, 'This is the heir. Come, let's kill him and take his inheritance.' 39 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

40 "Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?"

41 "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end," they replied, "and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time."

Commentary: Don't miss what was said in v. 41 and by whom it was said! The Pharisees and chief priests answered Jesus' question in v. 40, unwittingly and prophetically condemning themselves by their own words! Let's continue on with the rest of the passage:

42 Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the Scriptures:

"'The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone;
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes'?

43 "Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people [nation] who will produce its fruit. 44 He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed."

45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus' parables, they knew he was talking about them. 46 They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.
NIV

The "therefore" in v. 43 looms large in this passage because Jesus is drawing a conclusion to all that was said prior to the verse.

The "nation/people" in v.43 are the "tenants" in v.41. So, here we have Jesus agreeing with the religious leaders' assessment of the wicked renters of the vineyard and what their just end should be! And...Jesus is also alluding to when the kingdom will be taken away...which ultimately was in 70 A.D., which He talked about a few chapters later in his Mt. Olivet Discourse. And who is this "nation" to whom the kingdom would be given?

1 Peter 2:9-10
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
NIV

Again, this "holy nation" is the "great nation" that God promised to make out of Abraham! Far greater in number and in power because from the first century the Church has taken up Adam's task spiritually by cultivating the Garden with the Gospel of the Kingdom, thereby expanding the Garden/Kingdom by filling all the earth with disciples of Christ (Mat 28:19-20), which God originally mandated to Adam but he failed to do, and then later mandated to the nation of Israel with the same dismal results.

Now, I have a question for you, if you don't mind. Yesterday you spoke of two gospels: The "Gospel of Grace" and "the Gospel of the Kingdom". I take it that both these gospels differ in their message? I would like to know what their respective messages were, to whom each was preached and by whom each was preached , all of which with biblical support of course.

If you are talking about this:

Matthew 21:43 Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.

The Greek word translated as "nation" is ETHNOS, which is where we get our word "ethic" from.

However, when we read the context, we see this:

Matthew 21:45-46
45 And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.
46 But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet.

So, among the accepted rules for right and proper interpretation are the requirements to consider the audience and their perceptions of what the speak is saying, and for any modern people to force meaning into the speaker's words what does not fit the context apart from those things that have universal application, they do so in error.

MM

I prefer to remain in the context from where you derived your thoughts. As is stated in that context, the people standing there at that time perceived He was talking to the religious leadership, which is consistent with almost all the Lord's messages to them when addressing them.

I don't have time to do all your homework for you except to point out the simplest differences at this time, in addition to what I have already posted throughout this thread:

1 Corinthians 15:1-4
1 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;
2 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.
3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:

To bring into this those things taught to the nation Israel before Paul had received this plan for salvation, the mystery, directly from Jesus, that creates problems:

1) It assumes that one can legitimately ignore the timeframe within which each epistle was written, which is erroneous, and
2) It assumes that Paul was remiss, and therefore guilty for the sin of omission by not including the works elements for salvation that were in the message preached by the apostles who were commissioned to go only to Israel, excluding Gentiles and even Samaritans, and
3) When intermixing two different systems of truth directed to different peoples in different times, that injects considerable confusions and inconsistencies.

Why? Simply stated: We today easily draw lines of distinction between the instructions given to Noah, because none of us are going out and building an ark, we do not follow the Mosaic Law, and we don't work miracles, handle venomous serpents nor drink poisonous drinks as was told of a different people at a different time, under the Kingdom message. However, many think that they can cherry pick from the four Gospels the instructions given to them for salvation, and superimpose those works requirements over onto us today who are under the Gospel of Grace spoken and written by Paul, all the while excluding the miraculous aspects. That alone demonstrates the hypocrisy in such a practice.

Does that answer your question?

MM

Rules accepted by whom, and where in the Bible are we informed of it and to follow it?

And weren't the chief priests and Pharisees the religious LEADERS of the nation, and such represented the nation!? So...to which nation was the kingdom given? Are you going to tell us that the kingdom was given to only the rank and file (the common folks) of the nation of Israel? Or when God brought his judgment in 70 A.D. upon the Jewish nation, did that judgment just fall on the chief priests and Pharisees or did it affect the entire nation?

We see Paul stating this multiple times:

Romans 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

Galatians 2:16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

Galatians 3:11, 24
11 But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, [it is] evident: for, The just shall live by faith. ...
24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster [to bring us] unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

Then we look back at what James wrote to the nation Israel before Paul had received his Gospel from Jesus to preach to Gentiles and uncircumcised Jews:

James 2:21, 24-25
21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? ...
24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
25 Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent [them] out another way?

It's not that Paul and James were in opposition to one another, but that the works requirement dropped away for salvation with the shift over to the Gospel of Grace. This is emphasized by Paul more succinctly:

Romans 4:2 For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath [whereof] to glory; but not before God.

For Abraham, it was never his works that justified him.

Romans 11:6 And if by grace, then [is it] no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if [it be] of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.

This is so simple, the fact that the Gospel of Grace is not what was preached by James and the other apostles before the mystery revealed to Paul was in full force, with Israel having diminished for this time of the Gentiles...until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

MM

It would seem that if the fallacious religious leaders were representative of the nation to the extent that all the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were nullified on that basis, then the scriptures would have made that clear. The scope of any statement can only be defined by its context, and this context specifically focuses that scope upon those wicked religious leaders, not something that can be forced out into the entire arena of the nation of Israel, and this casting aspersions upon Abraham and his descendants all the way down to all the people at that time when Jesus walked the earth on physical form.

In other words, I would have to require that you show to me any legitimacy in that context whereby anyone today can subjectively expand the scope of that "taking away" as including all the Patriarchs of Israel, all the prophets, et al, as being included in that taking away of the promises exclusive to Israel to be given to another "nation" as you stipulated.

We all know that Jesus became the High Priest of ALL our salvation, of the order of Melchizedek, and simply don't see any measure of legitimacy in expanding the scope of Jesus's statements beyond what the very people to whom He was speaking understood Him to be saying.

MM

No it does not. I want to see in scripture where the "gospel of grace" and the "gospel of the kingdom" are preached so that I can see the differences between the two "good news" messages, and I want to see to whom these two different gospels were preached, and by whom these two different gospels were preached. If you can't produce chapter and verse proof for this information, then I can only conclude that your two different gospels are just man-made theological constructs that have no basis in God's Word.

I showed the most basic evidences in post 4455. If you can't see the differences, then I really don't know what else to say. Willful denial when faced with the evidence...what else is there to say?

MM

"It would seem..." what exactly? According to your logic? According to your line of reasoning? Are you totally unaware of Israel's history? Are you ignorant of the fact that both the kingdoms of Israel and Judah historically both suffered heavily under God's hand because of unfaithful religious leaders, a/k/a priests, chief priests, shepherds, etc? And it was no different in 70 A.D. God punished all Abraham's Special Seed (national Israel). The only ones who escaped punishment were Abraham's Spiritual Seed (believers) because they would have heeded Jesus' warning in Mat 24. And it would have been unjust of God to punish virtually all national Israel for the sins of a a few [religious leaders].

And are you ignorant of the fact that all faithful, believing patriarchs, prophets, etc. are in Christ, and that they can never suffer harm because all the promises are YES in Christ (2Cor 1:20), for He is the Unique Seed of Abraham according to Paul in Gal 3. None of God's promises will ever be "nullified" in Christ! This is what happens when your hermeneutical approach to the bible is backwards! You will inevitably go far off course when you do not interpret the OT scriptures through the lens of the eternal New Covenant. In fact, Christ himself is the antitype to Israel. Christ did everything that Israel was supposed to do but never did!

So...you still haven't answered my question: To whom was the kingdom given when it was taken away from Israel? To which nation was it given? I find it rather fascinating that the religious leaders thought it would be just of God to punish the wicked tenants of the vineyard (Israel) and rent out the vineyard to a different people, and yet you balk at that!

P.S. One more thing: In Mat 21 Jesus wasn't only speaking to the chief priests and Pharisees. Jesus was in a crowd of people.

Matt 21:23
23 Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. "By what authority are you doing these things?" they asked. "And who gave you this authority?"
NIV

It's clear from this passage the chief priests and elders eventually joined the crowd that Jesus was already teaching in the temple. Therefore, the religious elites were not the only ones he was addressing.