Is Israel still a favored nation?

[Dovegiven]

I have to comment because youre wrong about multiple things:

1) Replacement theology is not new, it is also more accurately called "fulfillment theology."

2) I am not taking anything out of context.

3) I never said Chrysostom was antisemetic, but he certainly was anti-judiazer, and you should be too.

4) Israel is NOT a plot of land in the middle-east. A "Jew" is NOT someone who lives in Israel, nor is it someone who is a physical descendent of Abraham. All of these things are seen WAY too carnally, and is not at all how God intended for them to be interpreted. God sees people as chosen BASED ON FAITH IN HIM. If someone claims to be a Jew, yet rejects Christ, they are NOT a Jew in God's eyes. If you read St. Justin, you will see that he juxtaposes the NEW/updated covenant (Christ) with the OLD covenant (Mt Sinai).

Christians ought never adopt doctrines that oppose the Bible. Replacement (fulfillment) theology has been variously believed throughout the Church history, a favored child of the RCC that supports the concept of the Papacy, which is not New Covenant, an idea foreign to the apostles of NT authorship.

Try explaining how Paul would be in error saying this.
Romans 11:1-32 (KJV)
1 I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
2 God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying,
3 Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.
4 But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.
5 Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
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.
7 What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded
8 (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear unto this day.
9 And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them:
10 Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway.
11 I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.
12 Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?
13 For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:
14 If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.
15 For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?
16 For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.
17 And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;
18 Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.
19 Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in.
20 Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:
21 For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.
22 Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
23 And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again.
24 For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?
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.
26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:
27 For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.
28 As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes.
29 For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
30 For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:
31 Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.
32 For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.

 

[tulsa 2011]

Romans 11:1-32 (KJV)
1 " I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
2 God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying,
3 Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.
4 But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.
5 Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. "

Paul gets into the remnant of Israel by quoting I Kings 19: 18. This refers to the time of Ahab and Jezebel and the apostasy they led. They were persecuting Elijah and Elijah thought he was the only one left faithful to God. But in I Kings 19: 18 God answers by saying he still has seven thousand in Israel who have not bowed the knee to Baal. This is the remnant at that time.Paul does not here review other times in the history of redemption in which a remnant replaces the multitude who have gone off into false doctrines and false practices or have otherwise become enemies of God and his remnant.

In the Flood of Noah's time God saved a very small remnant of only eight people and began over again with that eight. After the seventy years of the Babylonian captivity, groups of people of Old Covenant Israel went with Ezra, Nehemiah, Zerubbabel, and others to Jerusalem to restore the Wall and the temple. These groups were another remnant of Israel God used to began his people Israel all over again.

The remaking of Israel into the spiritual house of I Peter 2: 5, 9 involved a greater restoration of Israel, a transformation of Israel. That which was physical Under the Old Covenant was fulfilled in that which is spiritual in Christ and in the Holy Spirit.

So what Paul is getting at in Romans 11: 1-5 is that in the remaking of Old Covenant Israel in Christ Jesus, a remnant was again used by God to begin again his people Israel. This remnant of Old Covenant Israel who accepted Christ and were born again became the first fruits of the Israel of God, or Israel reborn in Christ. As predicted by Hosea 2: 23 a people not of the bloodline of Old Covenant Israel were added to Israel. Israel had been remade, changed and transformed into a spiritual house. But it was still Israel, the group God chose for his redemption of his people, now a much larger group than those of the Old Covenant.
The remnant of Israel which accepted Christ and were born again in him fulfilled Christ's mission to save the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 15: 24). To teach that all Old Covenant Israel will be saved as a group sometime in the future strongly implies that Christ failed in his mission to save the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Christ started Israel all over again in a remnant as he had done before but this time the restoration was into a spiritual New Covenant. This is a foundational basis of the New Covenant and rejecting it is serious.

 

[Dovegiven]

Your use of commentary from http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108605 doesn't cover Romans 11:1-32, but only the first 5 verses. In your own words please explain how there is a "spiritual Israel" which replaces virtual Israel, the 12 tribes of Israel. That's what I'm doing. Please stick to the Bible, possibly honoring the literal wording of Paul. I would appreciate everyone citing sources, and separating personal commentary. I don't make policy, but follow it as much as possible. AI respectfully ask you seek Administrator Chad for exemption from rules.

Would you say Paul is a false apostle? If so, where will you stop with avoidance of truth from any apostle? If you believe against Paul, then perhaps you can explain why the Lord would devote the names of the 12 gates in the wall around Heaven to the names of the 12 tribes of Israel?
Revelation 21:12 (KJV) 12 And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel:

I am not on record saying the Old Covenant (Moses) remains active. Indeed it is abolished during the time of the Gentiles. But it is fact that God will by his mercy and promise re-establish that law among those 12 tribes in historical Israel, which will extend to the boundaries Solomon controlled, though completed with the gospel of Christ, in the last days. Those Jews will evangelize the world for Christ Jesus during that last thousand years, completing the unfinished business of the Gentile Church grafted in to the natural vine, and will rule the world alongside the glorified saints of Christ in their own nations.

I am not "of" any one tribe of Israel. No, not of Judah, that of Jesus. I am of the household of God, which includes the elect of the household of Israel that believed on Jesus, and will believe. I am a Gentile believer grafted in this very small and temporary segment of time, into the eternal Vine just like Cornelius and his family were made equal to the Jewish apostles of Christ, though while not "natural" branches, were grafted into the Vine by mercy.

That same mercy will restore in the last days the gospel believing Jewish Israel, in that virtual, physical promised land of David and Solomon. Paul made it clear God will forgive their former unbelief which made it possible to save a world of Gentiles to whom God didn't specifically promise an inheritance. A remnant of that Israel will arise forgiven and empowered in Christ Jesus. I realize that infuriates some Gentile Christians, but it is wise to get over that, as stated by Paul in the above passage I posted.

 

[tulsa 2011]

I try to avoid getting into any kind of dialogue - argument, or the dialectic - that is at all about individual members on Christian forums. And yes, Google covers Theology Online as well as Talk Jesus.

Romans 1: 28-29:
28. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,"

Debate is in this list. But the Greek word translated as debate in the King James is Strong's 2054, eris, "a quarrel, i.e, by implication, wrangling, contention, debate, strife..."

When a member of a forum gets away from interpreting scripture and into a possible source of a member's post that can indicate more of a quarrel, rather than just being a difference between interpretations.

Corinthians 11: 16 says "But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God."

II Corinthians 12: 20 says "For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults:"

Here the Greek word eris is translated as debates and eritheia is translated as strifes. Again, a debate can be strife or contention by words.

Paul uses a different Greek word in II Timothy 2: 23, mache, "But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes."

And in I Timothy 6: 3-4 he uses an interesting Greek word, logomachia, "If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings."

This is a significant text, because what Paul is saying is that those who get off into doctrines that were not taught by Christ and the Apostles tend to get into logomachia, or strifes of words." Lets see what Strong's says about logomachia.

Logomachia is number 3055 in Strong's and is said to mean "disputations, strife of words." One might translate logomachia as "word fights."

 

[Dovegiven]

Just stick to the Word and you will do well.