Featured Israel / Church

Prove it. :type:

 

Scripture? Scripture? Scripture?

Context! Context! Context!

 

How do you interpret the following Scripture?

John 6:51-56
51. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
52. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
53. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
54. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
55. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
56. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
57. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.

 

Spiritual sense, but that is due to the contex and the allusion by jesus to it meaning a spiritual sense!

 

Am I to understand that prophetic speech is spiritual when dispensationalist say it is and literal when they say it is? Also I am not sure what context you have in mind? Jesus Christ is talking about salvation isn't He?

 

just saying that we keep isreal as meaning isreal, and church as meaning Church!

 

Ethnic Israel cannot be shown to exist. The Church includes all those redeemed by Jesus Christ throughout all time!

 

Huh? The Apostle Paul was from the tribe of Benjamin. He said so.

 

Jesus Christ was from the tribe of Judah and He died for the Church!

 

You still haven responded to the Scripture from John 6!

 

Luke 2:36
Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher

 

James 1:1
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.

 

What was the question? As i indicated, we inyetrprete the Bible based upon Conteex and the genre used!

 

I repeat the initial post for your edification!!

To provide a little more context for the above Scripture I present the following:

John 6:44-50
44. No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
45. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.
46. Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.
47. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
48. I am that bread of life.
49. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
50. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.

We see that Jesus Christ is presenting to the people the way of salvation drawing on the Divine provision of manna during the wilderness journey to emphasize His claim that He is the "Bread of Life", the way to eternal life.

 

Your statement is erroneous in several ways.

First, when did Nehemiah rebuild the Wall in Jerusalem? Approximately 542 BC, so PIJ, you are wrong in your date of 586 BC.

Ceasing to exist politically? The Pharisees of the time of Jesus were heavily involved in the POLITICAL and religious beliefs of the Jewish community and consisted of the tribes of Levi, Benjamin, and Judah, so your statement about "old Israel ceasing to exist politically" is historically inaccurate.

It is sad that you believe in Replacement Theology. Is this what is taught in Baptist Seminaries? The Church was Grafted into the Root, the Root being Israel.

Jesus is a Jew. The disciples were all Jewish. The historian, Eusebius, reports that the first 15 bishops of Jerusalem, until the time of Hadrian (AD 135), were all Hebrews (Jews). In fact, if we study history, there was probably no writer who did any
more damage to the Hebrew roots of Christianity than Origen and further, with the Council of Nicea (AD 325) we find the beginnings of Replacement Theology, where the "Church" replaces Israel.

When one carries Replacement Theology to the extreme, this is the root of anti-Semitism. Replacement Theology also makes God out to be a liar, dismissing the UNCONDITIONAL Abrahamic covenant, the UNCONDITIONAL covenant God made with Abraham.

Further, DNA is proving your premise is FALSE that "anyone who is a Jew comes from the tribe of Judah which is the only remaining tribe of the original Israelite nation." The Cohanim (plural of Cohen) are the priestly family of the Jewish people, members of the Tribe of Levi. Their DNA proves it. There are even black Ethiopian Jews, proven to be from the tribe of Levi through their DNA.

 

LadyEagle

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you said this to preachingjesus...lets take a look;

It is not replacement theology at all....it is more like expansion theology...or fulfillment theology.

Romans tells us that gentiles{not the church as you state} gentiles are grafted in to the root promises as were made to Abraham.
The promised seed is Jesus..the true Israel.


49 Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.

2 And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me;

3 And said unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.[/QUOTE]

This statement is not accurate as elders were appointed in every city...even cities where gentiles were the majority.

,

You have started with a wrong premise as we have seen. There is no"replacement" but an expansion exactly as Isa 54 speaks about:

Isaiah was not an anti-semite was he?

The church was in view before the world began...Physical Israel was only a type and shadow of the eternal church as pointed out above.

 

Knowing one's genetic heritage doesn't equal the continuation of a nation or political state.

I could very easily point out that my ancestry goes back to the Mayflower, which it does, but that doesn't mean the Mayflower community still exists.

Well which deportation are you talking about?

There were a number of deportations which comprised the Babylonian exile, the primary exile which divested the land of its primary population occurred around the time I gave.

As for Nehemiah...the reconstitution of the walls of Jerusalem does not mean that the political entity of Israel is reconstituted. In fact, if we look at the historical record from across the OT we see the 12 tribes became increasingly isolated into the two divided kingdoms.

Just because various religious sects were involved with the ongoing struggle between a people and their rulers doesn't mean an autonomous political state existed. In fact, by the time of Jesus the only tribes remaining were the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, which were located in the geographic area of historical Israel. The two tribes were, essentially, bound together in Judah per their alignment during the divided kingdom stage. The other 10 tribes, while still traceable, had lost all ethnic identity and any claim to land by the time of the Second Temple period. I'd recommend reading up on it in A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Christ by Emil Schurer, A History of Israel by Bright, and A Biblical History of Israel by Provan, et al.

The challenge for anyone suggesting that all 12 tribes (well, whatever list they decide to go with since there is significant variance across the OT itself) were still existing in Jesus' day is to show, using both biblical and non-biblical sources where the land claims were made. What tribes still had claim to what land. Because as I read the data that we have, though some people in the land at this time could and would identify to a certain tribe, all but Judah had lost their right to land. Besides, one or two tribes had been done away with because of their paganism.

Just because some religious sects were running around and representing a group of people doesn't mean they were representing all 12 of the tribes. In fact most Jewish historians of this period talk about the 12 tribes as a myth, I don't buy that, that is unrecoverable in history. While I believe the 12 tribes did exist for a time, once you get into the divided kingdom stage they begin disappearing pretty quickly.

Well my point isn't as easily classified as you might think. I would suggest that in part because of their paganism and along with God's overarching plan, the Nation of Israel was done away with as an inheritor of the covenants by an economic dismissal of their status as the covenantal receptors of grace when they disregarded Jesus Christ. That has more to do with the Jews since Israel doesn't exist politically or formally in this period.

Who is saying that Christianity doesn't have Jewish roots? I'm not saying that. I'm simply saying that Israel as a political people are no longer tied to the Nation of Israel from the OT.

Ah, yes, I was wondering when I was going to get called an anti-Semite. Actually I'm not an Anti-Semite. That is a libelous accusation which is often thrown around by people who disagree with my position. There are people who are anti-Semitic, I'm not. Please don't use this term.

I wouldn't call it replacement theology, but I would make this point...the Abrahamic covenant is only unconditional for those who are faithful to the spiritual covenants and ways of God.

When we look at the actual text of the Abrahamic Covenant and the subsequent chapters we see that it is not, in fact, unconditional.

It works great if you're Isaac...but not so great if you're Ishmael.
It works great if you're Jacob...but not so great if you're Esau.
So I guess not all of Abraham's descendents were receptors of this "eternal, unconditional" covenant.

My DNA shows that my ancestors came over on the Mayflower. Doesn't mean I get a slice of Massachusetts or the leftovers of the Mayflower community.

I don't think the actual DNA evidence is as telling as you are suggesting it is.

 

See my above post. Isn't it interesting that this is only mention in the NT of any tribe of long lost Israel...well outside of the apocalyptic imagery in Revelation. I would say that many people in Jesus' day could probably still trace their lineage, but that doesn't mean these lost tribes had a claim to the land.

So the book of James is only written to Israelites?

 

Much of the Old Testament is the history of God's dealing with His covenant people. However, all of Scripture is written for the benefit of the Church as the Apostle Paul tells us:

Romans 15:4. For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

It seems that some dispensationalists have a difficult tome accepting this! How often I have heard the claim made that the Gospel of Matthew was written for the Jews; yet it is in Matthew that Jesus Christ tells us He will build His Church.

 

the early church appeared to see that the Church was the new Covenat people of god, but that aklso the Lord would still have some type of realtionship to national isreal, that she had not totally forfeited her palce with God, but was suspended during this Age of Grace!

And augustine indded was the major player into getting this replacement theology into the church as formal doctrine, as he saw the catholic Church as being the Kingdom of God here upon the earth, so the church supplanted and received all the peromises made to isreal in OT, church became Spriitual isreal now!