More about Israel.
- Thread starter Gideon300
- Start date
-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
Faith has always been the issue. Caleb and Joshua entered because they trusted God. Elijah stood against Baal because most of Israel had wandered. Daniel and his friends stayed faithful when others compromised.
I guess the question I'm wrestling with is this: do those examples show that Israel wasn't God's covenant people, or that being part of the covenant people never guaranteed faith? To me, the remnant seems to exist within Israel, not instead of Israel. That's why Paul says, "They are not all Israel, which are of Israel."
It seems like we're agreeing on the main point: God has always been looking for faith, not just physical descent. The question is how that truth fits with the promises God made and how the New Testament says they're fulfilled in Christ.
So when we come to the promises to Abraham, are we saying Christ fulfills them, or that He replaces them with something entirely different?
That's the question I keep coming back to.
Like you said, OT and NT are in harmony, so whatever answer we arrive at should allow both to speak without forcing either one into silence.
OMC has taken a backseat to a personal view. He won't share it any more after He realized he was wrong and now understands the truth based on the way the Bible was written, he just won't admit it. So, now, you can only expect him to keep asking you questions hoping that you will someday see the light too.
--
God desires ALL to come to repentance and He bars no one from entering the narrow gate which is Christ Jesus.
It's funny, (not actually) that Hitler seemed to know who was a Jew and who wasn't. Now you're saying there is no such race? No such people? Over 6 million lives could have been saved if Hitler only knew your beliefs. Pity.
No, people are answering what you are posting. At this point we're going in circles. You didn't almost marry a Jewish woman because Jews don't exist according to you.
Apparently you and your cheer leader @HeIsHere haven't read the 50 times I've posted it before. I know what you're doing. And trying to bait me isn't going to work. Go read my posts, it's there. Or find it yourself.
To Revelation1v8,
Your response exposes the exact carnal hermeneutic that the Apostle Paul spent his entire ministry dismantling. You are attempting to split the inheritance of God into two tracks: physical real estate for ethnic Jacob, and "the rest of the earth" for the Church.
By binding the Abrahamic Covenant to physical geography and literal fleshly boundaries, you directly contradict how the Holy Spirit interprets the land promise in the New Testament.
Let us look at the airtight, apostolic architecture that shatters your physical-dirt theology:
1. The True Scope of the Land Promise (Romans 4:13)
You claim the covenant was strictly for a localized piece of land with "specific boundaries listed." But look at how the Apostle Paul defines the actual scope of the promise made to Abraham and his seed:
“For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.” (Romans 4:13)
Notice the word the Holy Spirit uses: the world (kosmos).
- God did not promise Abraham a tiny, localized strip of real estate from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates as an ultimate reality.
- That localized land was a temporal type and shadow of a far greater, universal reality: the entire renovated creation!
- Abraham’s true inheritance is the cosmic kosmos. And who inherits this world? Those who possess the "righteousness of faith"—the New Testament Church, consisting of elect Jews and Gentiles combined (Galatians 3:29).
You argue that the physical seed of Jacob must inherit that specific, earthly geography. But what did Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob actually look for? Did they die wringing their hands over Middle Eastern dirt?
“These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off... and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth... But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.” (Hebrews 11:13, 16)
According to Hebrews 11:10, Abraham looked for a city “whose builder and maker is God.” The Patriarchs explicitly looked past the temporal, earthly land of Canaan because they recognized it was merely an instructional shadow. They desired a heavenly country—the New Heavens and the New Earth. If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob didn't prioritize the literal dirt as their ultimate fulfillment, why are you demanding it for them?
3. The 144,000 and the Spiritual Zion (Revelation 7 & 14)
You point to the 144,000 from the 12 tribes in Revelation 7 to prove ethnic division. But you fail to read how the book of Revelation interprets its own symbols.
- In Revelation 7:4, they are sealed on earth.
- In Revelation 14:1-4, we see their actual identity and location: They stand on the spiritual Mount Zion with the Lamb.
- Are they a literal political army occupying a physical plot of dirt? No. Verse 4 defines them: “These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.”
Conclusion: One Seed, One Joint-Inheritance
Your system creates an unbiblical segregation in the family of God, where Christ has two brides, two peoples, and two separate inheritances.
But the New Testament logic is an unyielding unit:
- Christ is the singular Seed of Abraham (Galatians 3:16).
- Christ is the ultimate Heir of all things (Hebrews 1:2).
- The Church is vitally ingrafted into Christ, making us "joint-heirs with Christ" (Romans 8:17).
You were misled. Jesus himself told you that He was going to fulfill all of the prophecies in the Old Testament, and He didn't mean just spiritually either. No, He will fulfill them spiritually, physically and literally. You just have to read your Old Testament to know what's in it. That's the problem, unfortunately, with Christians today. They think they only have to read the New Testament to know what God/Jesus had to say, but Jesus told you to be looking at the Old Testament too in....
Luke 24:44 - And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.
---
After the Millennial Kingdom on earth is over from Revelation 20, THEN the Kingdom of Heaven does comes down. Read Revelation 20 & 21 again. Like the Bible says, "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." There's no escaping it regardless of how hard you try.
We've gone over this 1,000 times like the rest of the group who chooses to like your posts, but like you, they refuse to listen to the Word of God because you/they haven't studied the Old Testament to know what it says.
---