Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
no i dont see what you see...
but even if it were true, do you think the nation of Isreal would suddenly believe and accept Jesus as the Messiah?
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Israel and the soon return of Yeshua Christ
- Thread starter InChrist
- Start date
no i dont see what you see...
but even if it were true, do you think the nation of Isreal would suddenly believe and accept Jesus as the Messiah?
You state this as though it were an act of rebellion, and not scholarship. "They have chosen to reject them". The truth is they have chosen to understand them in a clearer light than what these earlier church scholars had available to them. This is like saying modern scientists have chosen to reject early scientist's authority on a geocentric model of the solar system where the sun moves in an orbit around the earth. Shouldn't we accept that early view of them is more authoritative too, since they too were closer to the date of the creation of the earth?
Even so, if you wish to frame it as some sort of emotion rebellion of these modern scholars against the early church fathers, then if in they are, then they are in fact doing so for entirely valid and legitimate reasons. We have more data available to us today to help form a clear picture than them. When I say modern scholars are aware of these earlier views, I mean they are in fact weighing them and taking them into consideration. They are not rejecting them wholly out of hand, nor rejecting them entirely. They balance what they are saying alongside other information. That's called scholarship. If they were just rejecting them as trash, well then they are not scholars, and I would not listen to them.
Several things here. You again frame this as a matter of personal preferences. No, it is a matter of rational and spiritual integrity. Granted, I'll call intellectual and spiritual integrity over intellectual and spiritual suicide a matter of personal preference, but the choice in valuing modern scholarship has nothing to do with emotional factors. It has to do with rational factors. I prefer to keep an open mind and weigh the insights of all parties in helping form and shape my personal views. Others prefer to remain ignorant of these views by branding and labeling those who say something that challenges them, calling them servants of the devil, deceived, lost, fools, rebellious sinners, and so forth. I prefer to not do that as I see that as a hindrance to spiritual and intellectual growth.
Secondly, modern scholarship does not have the "blatant objective of discrediting the authority of the scriptures and attacking the supernatural revelations" as you framed this. If they have an agenda like this, as you put it, then they are not scholars at all, but a bunch of religious zealots on a political quest. Granted, modern atheism will take what modern scholarship reveals and abuse it to attack and discredit views that are outmoded and outdated, and that is in fact political. But scholars, and scientists themselves are not "out to get you". They are simply providing information and insights based on their given areas of expertise.
It's not a battle between good and evil with the servants of God on one side, and the servants of Satan on the other. That image is solely the mask those who personally feel threatened by knowledge put on it. That's a pity, IMO. To me, to use those masks of a battle been light and dark, I believe modern knowledge helps to cast a greater light to bring us out of the darkness of ignorance, into the light of God. But it requires a spiritual bravery to leave behind those objects of limited views of our past in order to allow ultimate Truth a greater foothold.
So thirdly, unlike what you say that, "I think by doing so you will miss out on the communication God is expressing for those who seek to know Him", I believe this is how God is communicating to us, if we listen. And I believe to not listen, to bury ourselves in an earlier understanding with no room for greater knowledge or awareness, that that is in fact what cuts us off from growing in the Knowledge of God. All I can tell you is that on a personal experience level, freeing myself from the shackles of rigid and inflexible antiquated dogma and allow other considerations to enter into the field of mind and spirit, has help create an unprecedented rate of growth for me intellectually and spiritually. Committing intellectual suicide, grieves the Spirit within us. Shutting ourselves off from knowledge, no matter its source, is rather an embrace of Fear, rather than an act of Trust in God.
I accept it as it is too. But understanding what it is, requires a better understanding of it through research and the tools of scholarship, rather than just what I think reading it ignorantly.
Last edited:
InChrist
Free4ever
I do believe the scriptures indicate that the nation of Israel will at a certain point realize and believe Jesus is their Messiah.
For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:
The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins. Romans 11:25-27
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
although, you are reading one of Pauls letters and Pauls view of who 'Israel' is may not be what you think it is. Who is 'all Israel'?
Romans 9:6 However, it is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all who [spring] from Israel are really Israel.
Romans 2:29 But he is a Jew who is one on the inside, and [his] circumcision is that of the heart by spirit...
And take for example all the many occasions in Israels history when God punished them and allowed other nations to invade and take them captive....he always saved a 'remnant' who were the faithful ones from among the nation. Note this prophecy:
Isaiah 10:21*A mere remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the Mighty God. 22*For although your people, O Israel, would prove to be like the grains of sand of the sea, a mere remnant among them will return. An extermination decided upon will be flooding through in righteousness, 23*because an exterminating and a strict decision the Sovereign Lord, Jehovah of armies, will be executing in the midst of the whole land.
Now when Paul speaks of Israel being saved, he actually uses this prophecy and says that a 'remnant' of Jews will be saved
Romans 9:27 Moreover, Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: Although the number of the sons of Israel may be as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved.
Romans 11:5 In this way, therefore, at the present season also a remnant has turned up according to a choosing due to undeserved kindness
The remnant at that time were those Jews who had accepted Jesus as the Messiah... and over time more jews came to accept Jesus too...and even today some jews are still accepting Jesus into their lives. But it will always only be a remnant.
outhouse
Atheistically
Does not hold up. Its just your own personal perseption nothing more.
Any conection to Israel in scripture is nothing but luck.
Anyone who has made a prediction of he return of jesus ALL have one thing in common.
Every one of them was wrong
And anyone claiming "soon" now has something in common with all the failures in the past.
No. No where does it say 'remnant' of Jews will be saved.
Who is Israel during the time of Jesus? Who is Israel now. It sure was not the Jews then or now.
Matthew 15:24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the House of Israel.
This then is the means by which Jesus intends to save all sinners, but most who call themselves 'Christian' amnd JW do not even know he said this, let alone knowing who the House of Israel are or that the new cvenant of grace is ONLY with those whose fathers broke the old covenant, with the descendants of the House of Israel and the House of Judah ...
Do you see how far religion has strayed , it no longer seeks out the House of Israel that the disciples of Jesus were commanded to go and find, scattered amongst the gentiles :-
Matthew 10:6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.
Acts 2:36 Therefore let all the House of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.
Hebrews 8:8 For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and with the house of Judah:
9 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.
10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
11 And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
You may not realise that the NT writers explain Hebrew scriptures. The apostle Paul applies the prophecies of Isaiah 10:22,*23 & 1:9 to jews who accepted Christ and he says 'they are the remnant'
He also Paul uses the example of the 7,000 left in Elijahs time who had not bowed to Baal, and he says: In this way, therefore, at the present season also a remnant has turned up according to a choosing due to undeserved kindness. Ro 11:5.
thus the NT does say a remnant will be saved and by looking at the events of the initial fulfillment, it helps us to understand how the greater fulfillment takes place.
nazz
Doubting Thomas
Um, no.
The State of Israel means nothing to me, religiously. In traditional Christian belief, Israel is the spiritual nation of God's people. It is the Church, the Body of Christ. We are to have our sights set on the Heavenly Jerusalem and not some piece of land. Anything else is heretical.
Since you're Jewish, I don't expect you to agree.
Regardless, that is what my religion teaches, due to the Covenant God has established with humanity through Christ.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Since you're Jewish, I don't expect you to agree.
Actually, from what I remember (hopefully), Catholic teaching has it being referenced to as "the New Jerusalem", not "Israel".
Spiritual Israel is the Church and the New Jerusalem is Revelation's symbolism for God's Kingdom.
Shermana
Heretic
Interesting how the dimensions of the New Jerusalem almost perfectly fit the promised borders of Abraham from the Wadi to the River. I suppose there's some kind of symbolic interpretation of the numbers of Stadia?
Also, I don't see anything about "Spiritual Israel" in the text being something beyond the initial "Judah and Israel" whom the New Covenant was promised to, got a verse?
I agree with you a point spiritual Israel in the believers not the church little "c". Mount Zion is God's Spiritual elect. You must understand there are two churches the are god's out called then then their is Baby-lon (all religion)
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Ah, "spiritual Israel", which is somewhat different than just saying "Israel". OK, are the Jewish people who are observant Jews part of this "spiritual Israel"? Just askin.
No way.Ah, "spiritual Israel", which is somewhat different than just saying "Israel". OK, are the Jewish people who are observant Jews part of this "spiritual Israel"? Just askin.
The Jews is only one tribe of twelve; actually when you speak of the Jews you are speaking on one single tribe which also includes the tribe of Benjamin for they were blended together over time. What about the other ten? You see when they speak of the lost tribes of Israel they are not speaking not of the Jews but the ten other lost tribes, they were separated and later scattered after Salomon. The ten tribes which were scattered is who Jesus is speaking of.
Ah, "spiritual Israel", which is somewhat different than just saying "Israel". OK, are the Jewish people who are observant Jews part of this "spiritual Israel"? Just askin.
When they accept Jesus as Lord, they will be. For now, they're viewed as "blinded" (re: Romans). According to Romans, the Jews have been blinded from accepting Jesus so that the Gentiles may be converted. But eventually the Jews will accept Christ, as the prophecy goes.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Believe what you want, but that's totally false. I think we know who we are and from whence we came, and you can go ahead and believe all the revisionist history you want. Even the "N.T." itself goes against what you believe. BTW, the scattering of the tribes occurred around 500 b.c.e. and not during Solomon's time that predated the Babylonian exile by about 400 or so years.