The Place of the Jews in the Purpose of God

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I think that those exegetical treatments of Romans 11 that don't see there a future national conversion of ethnic Israel, e.g. O. Palmer Robertson's in his otherwise good book "The Israel of God", are inadequate.
 
Richard, perhaps it is an “adequate” Romans 11 which doesn’t see “a future national conversion of ethnic Israel,” since Paul devotes the entire chapter to describing a then-present reality. It tells us that God’s current faithfulness to Israel is visible in Paul’s salvation, and goes on to discuss national Israel in terms of God’s ongoing elective purpose in Christ. Ultimately, the “remnant according to the election of grace” is a Christian, not ethnic, collective. Converted Jews, up to the present and into the future, automatically belong to the Body of Christ where “There is neither Jew nor Greek.”

Paul’s olive tree imagery speaks of natural branches and wild branches in the process of being grafted to a single “good olive tree.” The analogy provides for no separate, Ethnic-Israel tree awaiting a future engrafting.

We’ve seen the saving of “all Israel” in verse 26 morph into a proof-text proclaiming the future restoration of a racial Israel. It foresees a national salvation which delivers every circumcised human being who has the requisite percentage of Jewish blood, a history of Judaic religious observance and qualifies for Israeli citizenship papers. The full context of Romans 11, however, suggests “all Israel” exists in Christ (Messias) Jesus; the "all" consists only of those "children of promise" who are the seed of Abraham in Christ, “the fulness of Him that filleth all in all."

I'd suggest that Israel-Church Distinctionism, whether Dispensational or Reformed, has no future.
 
I should remind anyone who holds to the Westminster Standards that you are confessionally obliged to believe in the conversion of the Jews.

Nay, you are devotionally obliged as well.
 
Quote from Lollard
I'd suggest that Israel-Church Distinctionism, whether Dispensational or Reformed, has no future.

I'd suggest not, and lots of Reformed people would agree with me. All nations will be converted to Christ and that includes the Jews. It also includes the Canadians and they are as much racially pure as the Jews, so no doubt God will have as much difficulty in identifying true Canadians or Scots as He does in identifying Jews, speaking reverently.

Anyway if you accept that the Apostle Paul is saying that there will always be some Jews who believe, you've already accepted a special place for the Jews in your eschatology.

Here is my analysis of the inadequacies of Palmer Robertson's exegesis of the Romans passage, for what it's worth, which may not be a lot in your opinion:-

http://www.puritanboard.com/f45/o-palmer-robertson-romans-11-a-51401/

And remember the Reformed view of the national conversion of the Jews is very different from the Dispensational. There is really no "special place" for the Jew except on the highway to Hell until he or she becomes part of the true Israel and Commonwealth of God by being circumcised in heart and baptised in the Holy Spirit. Nor are we obliged to defend everything the Israeli government, Israeli army, or the Jews do generally.

If God is in the process of incorporating all nations into the spiritual Commonwealth of Israel, are the Jews, which he has permitted in His providence to survive, to be left out? Why did He not then ordain the destruction of them all in AD 70?
 
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Paul’s olive tree imagery speaks of natural branches and wild branches in the process of being grafted to a single “good olive tree.” The analogy provides for no separate, Ethnic-Israel tree awaiting a future engrafting.

V. 15, "If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?" The apostle clearly envisages a future receiving of the same entity that has been cast away. That entity can only be ethnic Israel. Nor can it be construed as a present receiving of individual Israelites, because the present status of this entity from the apostle's perspective is one of being cast off.

V. 28, after the "all Israel" declaration, "As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sake." It is impossible to make this apply to a Jew-Gentile entity. It can only have reference to ethnic Israel as a nation to whom God had made specific promises of salvation.

Again, v. 31, "Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy." The entity can be none other than ethnic Israel in contrast to Gentiles. Their present status was one of unbelief. The future expectation is that ethnic Israel shall obtain mercy through the Gentiles.

Finally, v. 32, "that he might have mercy upon all" demonstrates that "all Israel" must refer to the nation of Israel as an entire entity.
 
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What ethnic Israel?? Just because a person has 2% percent or whatever Jewish blood that automatically makes them a ethnic Jew even though they are mostly German or Russian or whatever other race? That makes no sense....I have Christian Puerto Ricans telling me that they are like 1% or 5% percent Jew and then claim they are ethnic Israel of Rom. 11 being fulfilled.....lol....

All Israel=the One New man The Church

and before this becomes a dead horse thread....check out this thread already on this subject...its an excellent thread.....until Wannabee came and messed it all up sIKE.....Im just playin mannnn lol

http://www.puritanboard.com/f46/will-there-massive-harvest-jews-before-Jesus-returns-44922/
 
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Here's my look at Palmer Robertson on Romans 11 and why I disagree with him, and believe that he doesn't do a good job of it :-

I have now looked at Palmer Robertson's careful treatment of Romans 11, and he hasn't persuaded me that - as well as speaking about an ongoing small part of the Jews believing until the end of time - that Paul isn't also speaking about a future reingrafting of the Jews as a nation.

I'll explain why later, on this thread..........

For a start,

I would largely agree with him that Romans 11 has present concerns and that some of it is about the fact that there is an ongoing (small) proportion of Jews that believe. This in itself would encourage Jewish evangelism by the Roman church.

vv. 1-11 I can largely agree with Robertson, though because of verse 12, I believe v.11 may have a future reference.

v.12 There is a weakness in Robertson's interpretation here:-

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?

Robertson believes that the fulness of the Jews is the full number of the Jews who will be saved incrementally to the end of time. But - although Jewish believers have contributed to the life of the church and the work of the Gospel - there is no sense in which this addition of Jewish believers has anything like exceeded or been commensurate with the riches that have been bestowed on the world by the fact that the Jews rejected Christ.

Also, Robertson believes that when the fulness of the Jews - and Gentiles - come in, Christ will return and the world will end. Yet there is no explicit mention of the Parousia in this chapter, and when the Parousia happens, there will be such a great change to the order of things, that the blessings of a Jewish "fulness" in that context would be moot. It would not be the Jewish fulness that would be the riches of the Gentile (and Jewish) believers, but the return of Christ which Paul doesn't mention.

The next verse where some of us wouldn't see eye to eye with Robertson's exegesis is v. 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?

Robertson ascribes this to the ongoing addition of a relatively small number of Jews over the centuries until Christ's return. But this interpretation of "life from the dead" does not exceed or is not even commensurate with "the reconciling of the world". Paul is using a fortiori arguments in 11:12 and 11:15. Has the blessing to the Gentiles, and the church, of Jewish believers down through the centuries, been in the order of the blessing that was received through the apostasy of the Jewish nation? Hardly. Paul's arguments in 11:12 and 11:15 wouldn't hold water if Palmer was correct.

I can't see if Robertson deals with the phrase "life from the dead". By ordinary grammatical rules it refers to life from the dead for the world. The life from the dead that the world has received from converted Jews down the years is appreciated by many Gentile Christians, but has not been commensurate with the reconciliation received from their collective casting away.

Notice too that Robertson is toggling between collective Jews and individual Jews in one sentence:-

For if the casting away of them (collectively) be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be (one by one or in a small proportion), but life from the dead?

Verse 24 is another verse where Robertson is weak

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? (Romans 11:24)

Robertson says, "Nothing in this figure of ingrafting communicates the idea of a distinctive and corporate inclusion of the Jews at some future date."

This depends on what Paul means by how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?

If he means (a) that it is more fitting that a Jew be reincorporated into the Olive Tree, that is one thing.

But if he means (b) that the Jews will be easy to reach or more likely to become Christians that has not been the experience of Jewish missions down the years. Robertson doesn't try to explain what Paul means by this.

If (b) is the case then it could only be such if Paul is talking about a future day of God's power upon the Jews when they will flock to Christ and it will be both "easy", natural and fitting for these branches to be re-ingrafted. Currently Jewish evangelism is hard; at some point in the future the Apostle is saying it won't be.

Verse 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.

A mystery is something that was hidden from the ken (knowledge) of man but is now revealed by God. Something of a spiritual nature that would not have been worked out by man, without special revelation by an apostle or prophet.

Robertson says that the mystery that Paul tells the Romans in 11:25 is that the Jews shall be partly/largely hardened/blinded until the Second Advent, when both the full number of the Jews and Gentiles will have come in.

One weakness with this is that Paul doesn't mention the Parousia or the end of the world.

Also it may be something that ordinary, even unsaved, people could work out by their own ken. It was even well known when the epistle to the Romans was written, without any revelation being given, that the vast majority of Jews were opposed to the Gospel. After centuries it is even more well-attested. No one expects a national conversion of the Jews. Without - and even with - a Word from God to say it is going to happen, to the natural man and the spiritual man it seems the most unlikely thing in the world. So I don't think that what Robertson says is a mystery, is a mystery. But a revelation that Israel would turn to Christ as a nation would be a mystery.

Also, a reason Paul reveals this mystery is so that the Gentile Christians would not be wise in their own conceits. If they knew that the Jews were coondemned to having only a very small proportion of believers among them down through the centuries, it might leave the Gentile Christians still conceited against the Jews.

On the other hand if they knew that the Jews were yet to play a major part in redemptive history, it might disabuse the Gentile believers of their conceits.

For the above reasons, I take the view that there will be a future national conversion of the Jews.

One of the weak points for those of us who believe this is as Don P ponts out at this thread

Anyone want to take a crack at answering John MacArthur here?

is the diverse use of the word "fulness" in v.12 and v.25.

In verse 12, according to the Jewish national conversion interpretation, a national conversion of the Jews (their fullness) will lead to greater progress of the Gospel among the Gentiles than there has been over the past 2,000 years.

In verse 25, according to the Jewish national conversion interpretation, the fulness of the Gentiles is a widespread number of converts over 2,000 years from all nations, which fulness may be petering out and losing steam (see the end of v.15)

I don't know how this is reconciled. Maybe it is just that you can get different types of fulness.

Having looked at Palmer's interpretation, I am strengthened in my belief in a national conversion of the Jews.

Verse 26

Palmer Robertson believes that this refers to all the elect. He uses some strange and outlandish arguments against the idea of it meaning a national conversion.

I believe the fact that Paul is not only talking about an ongoing salvation of a small number of Jews, but also a national conversion has been established by the previous verses. Whether, "And so all Israel will be saved" or, more accurately, "And in this manner all Israel will be saved" refers to the total number of the elect or to a national conversion of ethnic Israel from being partly saved to all being saved, doesn't affect the above interpretation.

Throughout this chapter Robertson is reacting to premillennialism and dispensationalism, and seems oblivious to any other view, e.g. postmillennialism. This confirms that some, in their reaction to the errors of dispensationalism, are throwing the baby out with the bath water, and seeing no national conversion of the Jews in Romans 11.

Maybe some also swing in reaction to dispensational excesses to amillennialism rather than postmillennialism/optimistic-amillennialism, or even heretical hyper-pretism.

This ends a look at 0. Palmer Robertson's chapter on Romans 11 in his book, "The Israel of God: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow."
 
One wonders how far the grafting metaphor goes. If you graft a wild olive branch into a cultivated variety, the fruit still ends up small, difficult to harvest, with a low oil content and generally nonsensical. As in no farmer's ever done it who has been sane. The cultivated fat, oily productive branch will sit there and still after a hundred years retain all the characteristics of a cultivated variety, while the wild olive will always be economically worthless. The roots never change the basic DNA of the scion, i.e. grafted branch. So the "holy" part can only mean association; i.e. the same sap flows through both branches. Nothing really changes otherwise.
 
Paul’s olive tree imagery speaks of natural branches and wild branches in the process of being grafted to a single “good olive tree.†The analogy provides for no separate, Ethnic-Israel tree awaiting a future engrafting.

V. 15, "If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?" The apostle clearly envisages a future receiving of the same entity that has been cast away. That entity can only be ethnic Israel. Nor can it be construed as a present receiving of individual Israelites, because the present status of this entity from the apostle's perspective is one of being cast off.

Any "future" envisaged in v. 15 is restricted to the ongoing, continuous operation of God's elective purpose in Christ Jesus for both Jew and Gentile. In v. 5, Paul has established a current time-frame for the receiving of individual Israelites: "Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace." Moreover, "life from the dead" in v.15 follows on from Paul�s expressed desire for ethnic Israelites in the preceding verse (14), "If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them." The "some of them" are Jewish individuals living in the present tense, not an amorphous, collective, ethnic entity waiting for the distant future to undo its deadly unbelief.

There is nothing in Armourbearer's commentary on verses 28, 31, 32 to support the eschatological tweaking of Romans 11. Paul's burden for Israelite ethnicity is personal, individual and directed at a contemporary reality. If "all Israel" refers to an entire (without exception), ethnic (genetically-determined) entity headed for a millenia-spanning future, then scriptures says this restorationist ideology has failed to establish both its entirety and its futurity. Robust congregations of Israelite Christians existed during Paul's lifetime, and are engaged throughout the Book of Acts. The letter addressed to the Hebrews testifies to their size and vitality.

Dispensational and Reform futurisms ignore the Gospel focus of Romans 11--a chapter preoccupied with the dynamic work of the Holy Spirit in bringing elect Jews into the Lord Jesus' household of faith. They ignore, as well, the immediacy of the "Replacement Theology" taught by the Lord Jesus Himself, "Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof (Matthew 21:43)"; and they ignore the historical moment that ended the national life of ethnically-defined Israel, "And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent." From that moment forward, only "the Church of the living God" (the "Israel of God," that is) was granted the "boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh (Hebrews 10:19,20)."
 
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There are a number of flaws and blind spots in the analysis of Romans 11 by those who deny that it teaches a future conversion of the Jews:-

E.g. v. 12 says,
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?

How does the riches the Gentiles have received from the apostasy of the Jews correspond in richness to the incremental addition of Jews to the Church? If the fulness of the Jews is taken to be the full number of the Jews converted by the end of the world, how does the richness of that correspond to the great riches that the Gentiles have received from their apostasy? There is no comparison, yet our Apostle is saying that the richness that the Gentile Church will receive from the conversion of the Jews will be at least as great as that received through the apostasy of the Jews. Where is this great richness he speaks of?

Deniers of Jewish national conversion believe that the fulness of the Jews is the full number of the Jews who will be saved incrementally to the end of time. But - although Jewish believers have contributed to the life of the church and the work of the Gospel - there is no sense in which this addition of Jewish believers has anything like exceeded or been commensurate with the riches that have been bestowed on the world by the fact that the Jews rejected Christ.

Also, deniers of Jewish national conversion believe that when the fulness of the Jews - and Gentiles - come in, Christ will return and the world will end. Yet there is no explicit mention of the Parousia in this chapter, and when the Parousia happens, there will be such a great change to the order of things, that the blessings of a Jewish "fulness" in that context would be moot. It would not be the Jewish fulness that would be the riches of the Gentile (and Jewish) believers, but the return of Christ which Paul doesn't mention.

This is just the first flaw.
 
There are a number of flaws and blind spots in the analysis of Romans 11 by those who deny that it teaches a future conversion of the Jews:-

E.g. v. 12 says,
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?

How does the riches the Gentiles have received from the apostasy of the Jews correspond in richness to the incremental addition of Jews to the Church? If the fulness of the Jews is taken to be the full number of the Jews converted by the end of the world, how does the richness of that correspond to the great riches that the Gentiles have received from their apostasy? There is no comparison, yet our Apostle is saying that the richness that the Gentile Church will receive from the conversion of the Jews will be at least as great as that received through the apostasy of the Jews. Where is this great richness he speaks of?

"The Gentiles" are not a single, unitary entity who have received the riches of Christ in a one-shot conversion-event, so "correspondence" is a non-issue. The building of the Body of Christ (consisting of both Jews and Gentiles) can be nothing other than incremental (c.f. Acts 2:47b).

"Their fullness," according to v. 12, doesn't refer to end-time conversion numbers, but to their spiritual completion or fulfillment as a people beloved of God, "Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen (Romans 9:4,5)." The ministry of the riches of Christ to the Gentiles expands from the ministry to the Jews: "For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth (Acts 13:47). There is no need for tit-for-tat "correspondence" in this outreach.

"Gentile Church" is a misnomer (read the Acts of the Apostles). Moreover, the great riches of which he speaks are gloriously presented to the Jews who received the letter to the Hebrews:

"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son. . .when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;"

"...but he took on him the seed of Abraham.. .that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people."

"...But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them."

"For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:"

"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;"

"But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels. . . And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel."

Deniers of Jewish national conversion believe that the fulness of the Jews is the full number of the Jews who will be saved incrementally to the end of time. But - although Jewish believers have contributed to the life of the church and the work of the Gospel - there is no sense in which this addition of Jewish believers has anything like exceeded or been commensurate with the riches that have been bestowed on the world by the fact that the Jews rejected Christ.

'Deniers of Jewish, national conversion set in an exceedingly remote future' believe that "Israel after the flesh" was replaced by the "Israel of God" in Christ Jesus (in which "neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature"), and that this was an accomplished fact when Paul was writing to Roman Christians. The historical outworking of the Lord Jesus' replacement warning in Matthew 21:43 is seen unfolding in Acts13:45,46, "Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles"; in Acts 18:5,6, "And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ. And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles"; and in Acts 28:28, "Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it." That certainly explains why a futuristic concern for the commensurate apportioning of riches is irrelevant.


Also, deniers of Jewish national conversion believe that when the fulness of the Jews - and Gentiles - come in, Christ will return and the world will end. Yet there is no explicit mention of the Parousia in this chapter, and when the Parousia happens, there will be such a great change to the order of things, that the blessings of a Jewish "fulness" in that context would be moot. It would not be the Jewish fulness that would be the riches of the Gentile (and Jewish) believers, but the return of Christ which Paul doesn't mention.

Paul's non-mention of the return of Christ simply confirms that his purpose in Romans 11 is not to promote an eschatology which foresees an enduringly race-based "Israel after the flesh" experiencing a sudden, universal, conversion-event at an indeterminate point in the remote futiure.

This is just the first flaw.

The fatal flaw in an Israel-Church distinctionism which believes in the future conversion of every Jew (without exception) is twofold. First, it presumes that "the Israel of God" is a purely ethnic body reserved for those with Jewish bloodlines; in other words, it contradicts Romans 2:29,29 by claiming that he _is_ a Jew who is one outwardly. Scripture, clearly and emphatically, rejects this sanctimonious obsession with raciality by underlining the centrality of Christ in identifying the true Israel of God: "And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:29)"; "That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed (Romans 9:8)." The writer of the foregoing is not pleading in Romans 11 for the preservation of a Jewish racial exceptionalism that would extend into 2010 AD.

Second, it presumes (after the fashion of the dispensational) that the coming of Christ to Israel had no 'national' effect whatsoever; a token smattering of Jews were brought into the Church, but the 'real' Israel, ever populous and ethnically-correct, was left suspended in millenia of unbelief. The Lord Jesus certainly did not envision such a futurist travesty when speaking to His disciples in Luke 24:44,46,47, "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. . . And [He] said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem."

The Christ of God would not dismiss, as merely "incremental," the ongoing, effectual work of the Holy Spirit in the preaching of the global Gospel to Jews at Jerusalem. Nor would He approve a dogma that re-erects the partition between Jew and Gentile in order to provide a 'future' for unbelieving Jewish flesh--a very lengthy future which has seen multitudes of them fulfill His warning:

"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." --John 3:36
 
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All Israel = God's Elect

26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. Gal 3:26-29
 
All Israel = God's Elect

26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. Gal 3:26-29

So then the Gentiles are grafted into the Church to make the Church jealous? That makes no sense.

Read Romans 11 and where it says, "Jew, Israel, Israelite" replace it with the word 'church'. See if that makes any sense to you? If we can just get around the whole 'Jewish problem' by saying that the Church replaced Israel- then what in the world does Romans 11 do? If it is just 'church' then Paul is not making any sense at all!
 
Dispensational and Reform futurisms ignore the Gospel focus of Romans 11--a chapter preoccupied with the dynamic work of the Holy Spirit in bringing elect Jews into the Lord Jesus� household of faith.

The obstacle which this interpretation cannot overcome is the fact that elect Jews were already being brought into the household of faith. Even in this state of affairs a present blindness lay upon the people of Israel. Hence "Israel" must refer to the nation as a whole. The apostle expected this blindness to be taken away when the Gentile nations became recipients of the blessings of the gospel.
 
The observation "that elect Jews were already being brought into the household of faith" supports the interpretation of Romans 11 as being "preoccupied with the dynamic work of the Holy Spirit in bringing elect Jews into the Lord Jesusï’ household of faith."

Paul does not say (or infer) that Israel’s "present blindness" is a permanent, fixture which would define "the nation as a whole" for millenia. Nor do his words ever suggest that this blindness will be lifted, suddenly, from every human being on earth who carries traces of a Semitic bloodline, practices some form of Judaism or qualifies for Israeli citizenship.

Gentile nations received and are receiving the blessings of the Gospel, individually and incrementally. Mary, Zacharias, Simeon, Nathaniel, Peter, Paul, the saved Jews of Acts 2:47, the Jews who recieved the letter to the Hebrews, etc., all received the blessings as individuals and were added, incrementally, to the Church.

The blindness of ethnic Israelites is no different from the blindness which afflicts the Gentiles:

Ephesians 4:
17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.

That blindness is overcome when the Gospel of Jesus Messiah and the Spirit of God opens the hearts of elect Jews and Gentiles.
 
Paul does not say (or infer) that Israel’s "present blindness" is a permanent, fixture which would define "the nation as a whole" for millenia. Nor do his words ever suggest that this blindness will be lifted, suddenly, from every human being on earth who carries traces of a Semitic bloodline, practices some form of Judaism or qualifies for Israeli citizenship.

Nobody has claimed that his words suggest this. What has been urged is the plain meaning of his words: (1.) Individual Jews were being saved while there was a present blindness on the nation; (2.) this blindness would be removed; (3.) the removing of this blindness must be something more than individual Jews being saved. It is this point which your position is bound to answer.
 
Paul does not say (or infer) that Israel’s "present blindness" is a permanent, fixture which would define "the nation as a whole" for millenia. Nor do his words ever suggest that this blindness will be lifted, suddenly, from every human being on earth who carries traces of a Semitic bloodline, practices some form of Judaism or qualifies for Israeli citizenship.

Nobody has claimed that his words suggest this. What has been urged is the plain meaning of his words:

(1.) Individual Jews were being saved while there was a present blindness on the nation;

Israel can be nothing other than a community of individual Jews; their being saved confirms that the "present blindness on the nation" was partial (v. 25), and not a blanket sealing off the entire ethnic entity. The non-blind of Israel point to the ongoing, continuous operation of the grace of God for Christ's "elect Jews and Gentiles, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved (vs.25, 26)." The fullness of the Gentiles is not a statistical event, but the fulfillment proceeding from promises made to the fathers of Israel:

Romans 15:
8 Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers:
9 And that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name.
10 And again he saith, Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people.
11 And again, Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles; and laud him, all ye people.
12 And again, Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles trust.

(2.) this blindness would be removed;

The contextual sense is not "would be" but "is being" removed. The plain meaning of Paul's words indicate that the removal of the blindness is an ongoing process already begun (as fully documented in the Acts and by the epistle to the Hebrews); it was not being reserved for a one-time conversion event several millenia into the future. The entire chapter testifies that the lifting of the blindness is in progress: "(v.5) Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace"; "(v.14) If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them"; "(vs.30, 31} For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy."

(3.) the removing of this blindness must be something more than individual Jews being saved. It is this point which your position is bound to answer.

This eisegetic claim raises the following question about the plain meaning of Paul's words: what is it, exactly, that "must be something more than individual Jews being saved"?

We agree that "all Israel" does not mean every Jew in bible history, or all Jews who lived during the millennia between Paul's writing and our own day. We also know (may Jesus Christ be praised!) that Jews have been, and are being added, incrementally, to the Church. The futurist "all Israel," then, is a statistical imperative that gathers every ethnically certified man, woman and child to a particular point in time. All Jews present at that oncoming, universal, conversion moment will be saved according to the racial-statistical (not elective) measure used by Israel futurists. Nevertheless, the vast residue of the nation has _not_ been saved.

There are no texts, moreover, to support a future, mass salvation of an entire national Israel consisting of "outward" Jews. This is in marked contrast with numerous key texts that dictate salvation by the King of Israel is always profoundly individual and personal:

"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." -- Mark 16:16

"Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.ï" --John 3:3

"I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." --John 10:9

"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." --Romans 10:9,10

"But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother�s womb, and called me by his grace . . ."-- Galatians 1:15

"Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him." --1 John 5:1


And these are scriptures the Israel-futurist cannot answer.
 
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their being saved confirms that the "present blindness on the nation" was partial (v. 25), and not a blanket sealing off the entire ethnic entity.

Chapter 11 is concerned with Israeiltes as "the seed of Abraham," v. 1, and "his people which he foreknew," v. 2, that is, with an ethnic entity. He states, "at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace," v. 5. Outside of this remnant salvation he maintains that "the rest were blinded," v. 7. The blindness therefore specifically concerns the remaining section of the ethnic entity which was not presently being saved. Any other interpretation simply ignores the apostles own words.

(2.) this blindness would be removed;

The contextual sense is not "would be" but "is being" removed.

The literal words in the context is that the blindness has happened "until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in." He has already stated that the blindness is a present reality in those not being saved. The removal of the blindness will take place in the purpose of God when all the Gentile nations have become participants of that salvation.

(3.) the removing of this blindness must be something more than individual Jews being saved. It is this point which your position is bound to answer.

This eisegetic claim raises the following question about the plain meaning of Paul's words: what is it, exactly, that "must be something more than individual Jews being saved"?

It is not eisegesis because I have made the claim on the basis of the plain meaning of Paul's words. It shouldn't raise any question for the reason that it is obvious Paul is speaking about God's purpose for the nation of Israel. To date, the only objection which has been made to this obvious referent point is some demographical problem with identifying the nation of Jews. It should be plain, then, that sight, and not faith, is inspiring the objection. God's purpose is what it is; He calleth those things which be not as though they were; if sacred Scripture teaches the eventual calling of the Jewish nation then we are bound to believe it even when we cannot see it.
 
their being saved confirms that the "present blindness on the nation" was partial (v. 25), and not a blanket sealing off the entire ethnic entity.

Chapter 11 is concerned with Israelites as "the seed of Abraham," v. 1, and "his people which he foreknew," v. 2, that is, with an ethnic entity. He states, "at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace," v. 5. Outside of this remnant salvation he maintains that "the rest were blinded," v. 7. The blindness therefore specifically concerns the remaining section of the ethnic entity which was not presently being saved. Any other interpretation simply ignores the apostles own words.

Exactly--the apostle's own words are "in part is happened to Israel," that is, the blindness is partial and in the present. Moreover, the elect remnant, the existent non-blind of Israel "point to the ongoing, continuous operation of the grace of God" as opposed to the claim made in an earlier post that "the receiving of them" cannot "be construed as a present receiving of individual Israelites."

The literal words in the context is that the blindness has happened "until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in." He has already stated that the blindness is a present reality in those not being saved. The removal of the blindness will take place in the purpose of God when all the Gentile nations have become participants of that salvation.

If "the blindness is a present reality in those not being saved," then its removal is a present reality for those who are being saved, for Paul's words are "(v.14) If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them" The opening of 'remnant' eyes was taking place in Paul's day. His words, therefore, cannot be spun to mean that the removal of blindness from 'Israelites' was currently taking place, but the removal of blindness from 'Israel' was a mass conversion event, two millennia removed.

It is not eisegesis because I have made the claim on the basis of the plain meaning of Paul's words. It shouldn't raise any question for the reason that it is obvious Paul is speaking about God's purpose for the nation of Israel. To date, the only objection which has been made to this obvious referent point is some demographical problem with identifying the nation of Jews. It should be plain, then, that sight, and not faith, is inspiring the objection. God's purpose is what it is; He calleth those things which be not as though they were; if sacred Scripture teaches the eventual calling of the Jewish nation then we are bound to believe it even when we cannot see it.

Paul's entire ministry rejoices that "God's purpose for the nation of Israel:" has been fully realized in the finished work of Messiah Jesus whose coming into the world was a complete and final fulfillment of all God's promises to His elect nation: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people (Luke 1:68)." Paul writes, "(v. 26) as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins."

"The plain meaning of Paul's words" does not 'say' (nor does any context within Romans 11 teach) that "the removing of this blindness [the taking away of their sins] must be something more than individual Jews being saved." Again, this so-called "obvious referent point" cannot answer the wealth of verses which declare, in the clearest of language, that salvation is profoundly individual: "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me (John 14:6)."
 
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Quote from Lollard
"The Gentiles" are not a single, unitary entity who have received the riches of Christ in a one-shot conversion-event, so "correspondence" is a non-issue. The building of the Body of Christ (consisting of both Jews and Gentiles) can be nothing other than incremental (c.f. Acts 2:47b).

The fall of the Jews in their rejection of Christ, and the diminishing of the Jews in their being rejected as a nation by God, so that the vast majority of them continue to reject Christ, was a one off event that happened in the first century.

The benefits of that event to the Gentiles consists in the fact that there is a gospel to share. If the Jews hadn't rejected Christ, there was no other ordained means by which He would have been crucified.

There has been no commensurate benefit to the Gentiles in the small numbers of Jews being saved over the past 2,000 years, as the benefit of them having rejected Christ and having arranged for His crucifixion.

The benefits of the incremental addition of Jews to the Church for Gentile Christians and for the world generally have been prosaic. Certainly not something to call forth the doxology of the Apostle at the end of this passage.

Unless you are saying that the benefit of the small number of Jewish converts over the years has been as big as the fact that the Jews unwittingly provided the Church with a Gospel in the first place?

Quote from Lollard
national conversion set in an exceedingly remote future

The remoteness of the fulfilment of the Apostle's prophecy of a natinal conversion of the Jews, if that is what it is, is irrelevant. God can see into the remote future. What about Genesis 3:15, which wasn't fulfilled by Christ for thousands of years?

Moreover, those who subscribe to the view that the Apostle is predicting that there will always be a few Jews in the Church are also speaking of the "remote future".


Quote from Lollard
The Christ of God would not dismiss, as merely "incremental," the ongoing, effectual work of the Holy Spirit in the preaching of the global Gospel to Jews at Jerusalem. Nor would He approve a dogma that re-erects the partition between Jew and Gentile in order to provide a 'future' for unbelieving Jewish flesh--a very lengthy future which has seen multitudes of them fulfill His warning:

There is still a difference between Jews and Gentiles even after the coming of Christ as their is between e.g. Scots and Canadians. But in the Church there is no spiritual difference between them. Those who believe in a future conversion of the Jews are not saying that Jewish believers in Christ are in a more priviledged position than Gentile believers in Christ, anymore than we're saying that male believers in Christ are in a more priviledged position than female believers in Christ.

In the Old Covenant full Jews were in a better position spiritually than mere God-fearing Gentiles who wouldn't become full Jews. No-one's re-erecting a partition in the Church apart from some misguiided "Messianic Jews."

We value the contribution of Jewish believers down the centuries but it hardly compares with the "contribution" the Jews made in rejecting Christ without which their would be no riches of the Gospel at all.

Quote from Lollard
There is no need for tit-for-tat "correspondence" in this outreach.

There is a need for some at least tit-for-tat correspondence because the Apostle makes the comparison:

V.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?

Some of this persuasion seem to hold that after the first century Jews cease to exist, because it's always been believers that are the true Israel anyway. It always has been believers, Jews and Gentiles, that were the true Israel anyway. But clearly the Apostle Paul recognises ethnic Israel as being an ongoing entity, not part of the Church and without salvation outside of the true Israel.

Quote from Lollard
"The Gentiles" are not a single, unitary entity who have received the riches of Christ in a one-shot conversion-event, so "correspondence" is a non-issue. The building of the Body of Christ (consisting of both Jews and Gentiles) can be nothing other than incremental (c.f. Acts 2:47b).

But the riches were created in the partiicular events of the rejection of Christ by the Jews and the judgment on them in A.D. 70. These events didn't happen over a long period of time, and they provided the riches of the Gospel for the World and because the Jews failed to receive the Gospel particularly riches for the Gentiles.

Quote from Lollard
"Gentile Church" is a misnomer (read the Acts of the Apostles). Moreover, the great riches of which he speaks are gloriously presented to the Jews who received the letter to the Hebrews:

Yes, I meant Gentiles within the Church as opposed to ethnic Jews in the Church. Both are of the true Israel and are not inherently spirituallysuperior or inferior to one another. I know that there have always been some ethnic Jews who have believed from the time of the Apostles' to our day. That is part of what the Apostle is saying in Romans 11.

By saying that ethnic Jews exist and are being, and are going to be, saved by a certain plan of God's outlined in Romans 11 no-one is re-erecting the middle-wall of partition in the Church because although in the church there are Jews, Greeks, men, women, Scythian and Barbarian, none of these groups is in a spiritually superior position to the other as was the case in the Old Covenant and in relation to the Temple.

But men and women and Jews and Greeks still exist as entities both in and outside the Church - which is the Israel of God !!
 
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Quote from Lollard
"The Gentiles" are not a single, unitary entity who have received the riches of Christ in a one-shot conversion-event, so "correspondence" is a non-issue. The building of the Body of Christ (consisting of both Jews and Gentiles) can be nothing other than incremental (c.f. Acts 2:47b).

The fall of the Jews in their rejection of Christ, and the diminishing of the Jews in their being rejected as a nation by God, so that the vast majority of them continue to reject Christ, was a one off event that happened in the first century.

The benefits of that event to the Gentiles consists in the fact that there is a gospel to share. If the Jews hadn't rejected Christ, there was no other ordained means by which He would have been crucified.

There has been no commensurate benefit to the Gentiles in the small numbers of Jews being saved over the past 2,000 years, as the benefit of them having rejected Christ and having arranged for His crucifixion.

The benefits of the incremental addition of Jews to the Church for Gentile Christians and for the world generally have been prosaic. Certainly not something to call forth the doxology of the Apostle at the end of this passage.

Unless you are saying that the benefit of the small number of Jewish converts over the years has been as big as the fact that the Jews unwittingly provided the Church with a Gospel in the first place?

But none of the above negates, nor does it even address, the original observation that "'The Gentiles are not a single unitary entity" and that building the body of Christ "can be nothing other than incremental."

The claim, "If the Jews hadn't rejected Christ, there was no other ordained means by which He would have been crucified," is a preposterous attempt to assign merit to wickedess: "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain (Acts 2:23)."

Incidentally, that so-called "small number of Jewish converts over the years" spans two thousand years teeming with Jewish ethnics. So, a "small number" compared to what? To the number of Jews living at the precise moment of futurist Israel's universal, ethnically-exclusive, coversion?

"The Jews unwittingly provided the Church with a Gospel"?? Here's how the Lord Jesus deflates this factoid: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord (Luke 4:18,19)." The Gospel preached by Christ, obviously, was not "provided" by Christ-rejecting Jews, but by the God who "commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8)."

The remoteness of the fulfilment of the Apostle's prophecy of a natinal conversion of the Jews, if that is what it is, is irrelevant. God can see into the remote future. What about Genesis 3:15, which wasn't fulfilled by Christ for thousands of years?

This is a truly desperate analogy. Every word of scripture, from beginning to end, is directed by and for the Person of Christ. The promise to humankind and Israel, and its glorious fulfillment in Him inhabits every page. On the other hand, the so-called "prophecy of a natural, conversion" of a futurist Israel has been read into two solitary verses in a chapter dedicated to correcting Gentile Christians who failed to understand God�s continuing work of electing grace amongst ethnic Israelites; hence, Paul was able to say "God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew (Romans 11:2)."

Moreover, those who subscribe to the view that the Apostle is predicting that there will always be a few Jews in the Church are also speaking of the "remote future".

Not at all. The adding of Jews and Gentiles to the Church was, and continues to be, an ongoing process: "And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women (Acts 5:14)." Nor does this observation explain how two millennia (plus?) of Jewish unbelief is to be crowned with the conversion of the entire population of Jews alive at a particular moment. "Jews in the Church," then, now, and into the future are always 'Christians in the Church', and their ethnicity is voided in Christ: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28)."

We value the contribution of Jewish believers down the centuries but it hardly compares with the "contribution" the Jews made in rejecting Christ without which their would be no riches of the Gospel at all.

This is a pitiful attempt to lay track for a futurist Israel by 'sweetening' Jewish instrumentality in the murder of the Lord Jesus. Scripture plainly states the Jewish rejection of Christ was _not_ some kind of meritorious "contribution": "for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men(1 Thess. 14b,15)"; "Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers (Acts 7:52)."

Some of this persuasion seem to hold that after the first century Jews cease to exist, because it's always been believers that are the true Israel anyway. It always has been believers, Jews and Gentiles, that were the true Israel anyway. But clearly the Apostle Paul recognises ethnic Israel as being an ongoing entity, not part of the Church and without salvation outside of the true Israel.

Then you'll have to take that up with "some of this persuasion.":) In the meantime, the juxtaposition of "ethnic Israel" and "true Israel" simply confirms that the latter, "the Israel of God," consists of both Jew and Gentile children of promise.

"The Gentiles" are not a single, unitary entity who have received the riches of Christ in a one-shot conversion-event, so "correspondence" is a non-issue. The building of the Body of Christ (consisting of both Jews and Gentiles) can be nothing other than incremental (c.f. Acts 2:47b).

But the riches were created in the partiicular events of the rejection of Christ by the Jews and the judgment on them in A.D. 70. These events didn't happen over a long period of time, and they provided the riches of the Gospel for the World and because the Jews failed to receive the Gospel particularly riches for the Gentiles.

There's nothing in this response to correct what was asserted, namely, that "[t]he building of the Body of Christ (consisting of both Jews and Gentiles) can be nothing other than incremental (c.f. Acts 2:47b)."

Yes, I meant Gentiles within the Church as opposed to ethnic Jews in the Church. Both are of the true Israel and are not inherently spirituallysuperior or inferior to one another. I know that there have always been some ethnic Jews who have believed from the time of the Apostles' to our day. That is part of what the Apostle is saying in Romans 11.

By saying that ethnic Jews exist and are being, and are going to be, saved by a certain plan of God's outlined in Romans 11 no-one is re-erecting the middle-wall of partition in the Church because although in the church there are Jews, Greeks, men, women, Scythian and Barbarian, none of these groups is in a spiritually superior position to the other as was the case in the Old Covenant and in relation to the Temple.

But men and women and Jews and Greeks still exist as entities both in and outside the Church - which is the Israel of God !!

The statement, "men and women and Jews and Greeks still exist as entities both in and outside the Church," that ethnic, civil and gender identity survive even after Christ is "put on," proves nothing, Paul's naming of categories in Galatians 3:28 affirms that non-spiritual elements have no role in establishing one�s identity in Christ Jesus. God's elective purpose in Him, therefore, points to a truly substantive, not hypothetical or poetic, voiding of distinctions. Israel futurism, however, is wired to the belief that the entire Jewish ethnos outside of Christ continues to be a congenitally gifted bloodline--a racialist notion scorned by John the Baptist: "And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham (Matthew 3:9)." Obsession with the cult of a false, Christless Jewishness, moreover, is the object of God�s severest warning, "Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee (Revelation 3:9)."

Indeed, the statement, "Jews and Greeks still exist as entities both in and outside the Church - which is the Israel of God!!" gives up a truth affirmed earlier, "it's always been believers that are the true Israel anyway."The trick now is to explain which Israel is the subject of Romans 11, and which Israel Paul referring to in Romans 9:6-8, "Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed." The Israel of Christ Jesus is the Israel of God.

Both Reformed and 'Rapture Ready' Israel futurism operate under the 'stopped-prophetic-clock' presumption that a purely ethnic Israel (currently dressed in the geopolitical suit provided in 1948 by "the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience") did not receive, when Christ fulfilled all God's promises to Israel, the blessing to which it was entitled. The Word of God proclaims, not only has the blessing already come, but its reception is an accomplished fact performed by God's soverign will: "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:12,13)."

There is no sense of blessing yet-to-be-received (in the form of a futuristic conversion event) in the words of Peter to the men of Israel in Acts 3:24-26, "Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days. Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities."

Or in the words of Paul to the Jews of Pisidia in Acts 13:32-34,38,39, "And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. . .Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses."

Or in the words addressed to Jewish Christians throughout the Hebrew epistle, "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high ( 1:1-3)."
 
Quote from Lollard
Quote from RTallach
"The Gentiles" are not a single, unitary entity who have received the riches of Christ in a one-shot conversion-event, so "correspondence" is a non-issue. The building of the Body of Christ (consisting of both Jews and Gentiles) can be nothing other than incremental (c.f. Acts 2:47b).

The fall of the Jews in their rejection of Christ, and the diminishing of the Jews in their being rejected as a nation by God, so that the vast majority of them continue to reject Christ, was a one off event that happened in the first century.

The benefits of that event to the Gentiles consists in the fact that there is a gospel to share. If the Jews hadn't rejected Christ, there was no other ordained means by which He would have been crucified.

There has been no commensurate benefit to the Gentiles in the small numbers of Jews being saved over the past 2,000 years, as the benefit of them having rejected Christ and having arranged for His crucifixion.

The benefits of the incremental addition of Jews to the Church for Gentile Christians and for the world generally have been prosaic. Certainly not something to call forth the doxology of the Apostle at the end of this passage.

Unless you are saying that the benefit of the small number of Jewish converts over the years has been as big as the fact that the Jews unwittingly provided the Church with a Gospel in the first place?

But none of the above negates, nor does it even address, the original observation that "'The Gentiles are not a single unitary entity" and that building the body of Christ "can be nothing other than incremental."

The claim, "If the Jews hadn't rejected Christ, there was no other ordained means by which He would have been crucified," is a preposterous attempt to assign merit to wickedess: "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain (Acts 2:23)."

But the fall and diminishing of the Jews, i.e. the Gospel made available to the Gentiles through that fall and diminishing, were the riches made available to the Gentiles. These riches weren't produced incrementally, although they have been proclaimed to and received by the Gentiles incrementally.

I don't assign any merit to the wickedness of the Jews but just observe that their rejection of Christ, and rejection of the Gospel in (large) part, was the foreordained means of the Gospel message coming into being and going particularly by the Gentiles.


Quote from lollard
Incidentally, that so-called "small number of Jewish converts over the years" spans two thousand years teeming with Jewish ethnics. So, a "small number" compared to what? To the number of Jews living at the precise moment of futurist Israel's universal, ethnically-exclusive, coversion?

"The Jews unwittingly provided the Church with a Gospel"?? Here's how the Lord Jesus deflates this factoid: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord (Luke 4:18,19)." The Gospel preached by Christ, obviously, was not "provided" by Christ-rejecting Jews, but by the God who "commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8)."

The Apostle emphasises that the Jews in (large) part have been hardened. Most of the natural branches have been removed. According to your reasoning you would find fault with Paul for didtinguishing between natural and wild branches thus setting up a difference between Jews and Gentiles!! The number of Jewish converts in this period of redemptive history is small compared with the number of Jews who don't believe.

When the Jews believe in the future as a nation there will also at that time be a turning to the Lord of all nations. Many more Jews will believe over a long period of time.

An important part of the Gospel which Christ preached was that He was the stone which the builders rejected. If Christ had not been rejected by His people according to God's will and executed, there would be no Gospel.

Quote from Lollard
RTallach
The remoteness of the fulfilment of the Apostle's prophecy of a natinal conversion of the Jews, if that is what it is, is irrelevant. God can see into the remote future. What about Genesis 3:15, which wasn't fulfilled by Christ for thousands of years?

This is a truly desperate analogy. Every word of scripture, from beginning to end, is directed by and for the Person of Christ. The promise to humankind and Israel, and its glorious fulfillment in Him inhabits every page. On the other hand, the so-called "prophecy of a natural, conversion" of a futurist Israel has been read into two solitary verses in a chapter dedicated to correcting Gentile Christians who failed to understand God�s continuing work of electing grace amongst ethnic Israelites; hence, Paul was able to say "God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew (Romans 11:2)."

It seems to be you who is trying to avoid the fact that the Apostle is speaking of a future national (not natural ) conversion aswell as incremental engrafting.

Quote from L
R Tallach
Moreover, those who subscribe to the view that the Apostle is predicting that there will always be a few Jews in the Church are also speaking of the "remote future".

Not at all. The adding of Jews and Gentiles to the Church was, and continues to be, an ongoing process: "And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women (Acts 5:14)." Nor does this observation explain how two millennia (plus?) of Jewish unbelief is to be crowned with the conversion of the entire population of Jews alive at a particular moment. "Jews in the Church," then, now, and into the future are always 'Christians in the Church', and their ethnicity is voided in Christ: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28)."

You are speaking of the future aswell as the present. Palmer Robertson says that Romans 11 indicates an incremental conversion of Jews until the Parousia, and that the fulness of the Jews is the full number of Jewish converts at the Parousia.

No doubt the gender of males and females in the Church is also "voided". All this passage teaches is that there is spiritual equality between these groups, not that they cease to exist! In the Temple it was different, with the Court of the Women and the Court of the Gentiles being further from the Most Holy Place than the Court of the Israelites.

Lollard
R Tallach
We value the contribution of Jewish believers down the centuries but it hardly compares with the "contribution" the Jews made in rejecting Christ without which their would be no riches of the Gospel at all.

This is a pitiful attempt to lay track for a futurist Israel by 'sweetening' Jewish instrumentality in the murder of the Lord Jesus. Scripture plainly states the Jewish rejection of Christ was _not_ some kind of meritorious "contribution": "for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men(1 Thess. 14b,15)"; "Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers (Acts 7:52)."

I didn't say anything about merit but am just acknowledging God's use of the Jews in His Providence to provide us with the Crucified Christ. Maybe Ne could have done it some other way, but this is how it was ordained.

Quote from L
R Tallach
Some of this persuasion seem to hold that after the first century Jews cease to exist, because it's always been believers that are the true Israel anyway. It always has been believers, Jews and Gentiles, that were the true Israel anyway. But clearly the Apostle Paul recognises ethnic Israel as being an ongoing entity, not part of the Church and without salvation outside of the true Israel.

Then you'll have to take that up with "some of this persuasion.":) In the meantime, the juxtaposition of "ethnic Israel" and "true Israel" simply confirms that the latter, "the Israel of God," consists of both Jew and Gentile children of promise.

OK. Sorry. You don't deny that ethnic Israel exists. You admit that God has a special plan for etnic Israel to reingraft them incrementally but you deny that they will be converted as a nation in the future because this would make them special compared to other nations. But what's wrong with God viewing them as special. They are beloved because of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Apostle says. If all nations are going to be converted to Christianity anyway how special are the Jews?

L
"the Israel of God," consists of both Jew and Gentile children of promise.

True enough but variety is the spice of life. We don't stop being male or female or children or Scots or Canadian or Jewish(ethnically) when we become Christians or worship together!

Loll
R Tallach
"The Gentiles" are not a single, unitary entity who have received the riches of Christ in a one-shot conversion-event, so "correspondence" is a non-issue. The building of the Body of Christ (consisting of both Jews and Gentiles) can be nothing other than incremental (c.f. Acts 2:47b).
But the riches were created in the partiicular events of the rejection of Christ by the Jews and the judgment on them in A.D. 70. These events didn't happen over a long period of time, and they provided the riches of the Gospel for the World and because the Jews failed to receive the Gospel particularly riches for the Gentiles.
There's nothing in this response to correct what was asserted, namely, that "[t]he building of the Body of Christ (consisting of both Jews and Gentiles) can be nothing other than incremental (c.f. Acts 2:47b)."

But in the particular passage the Apostle isn't talking about the application of redemption to the Gentiles but he says that the fall of the Jews is riches and the diminishing of the Jews is riches. These are the events of the time Paul was writing and prior, not incremental events.

Loll
R Tallach
Yes, I meant Gentiles within the Church as opposed to ethnic Jews in the Church. Both are of the true Israel and are not inherently spirituallysuperior or inferior to one another. I know that there have always been some ethnic Jews who have believed from the time of the Apostles' to our day. That is part of what the Apostle is saying in Romans 11.

By saying that ethnic Jews exist and are being, and are going to be, saved by a certain plan of God's outlined in Romans 11 no-one is re-erecting the middle-wall of partition in the Church because although in the church there are Jews, Greeks, men, women, Scythian and Barbarian, none of these groups is in a spiritually superior position to the other as was the case in the Old Covenant and in relation to the Temple. But men and women and Jews and Greeks still exist as entities both in and outside the Church - which is the Israel of God !!

The statement, "men and women and Jews and Greeks still exist as entities both in and outside the Church," that ethnic, civil and gender identity survive even after Christ is "put on," proves nothing, Paul's naming of categories in Galatians 3:28 affirms that non-spiritual elements have no role in establishing one�s identity in Christ Jesus. God's elective purpose in Him, therefore, points to a truly substantive, not hypothetical or poetic, voiding of distinctions. Israel futurism, however, is wired to the belief that the entire Jewish ethnos outside of Christ continues to be a congenitally gifted bloodline--a racialist notion scorned by John the Baptist: "And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham (Matthew 3:9)." Obsession with the cult of a false, Christless Jewishness, moreover, is the object of God�s severest warning, "Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee (Revelation 3:9)."

The Jewish people who don't believe in Christ are going to Hell like the Gentiles. But this does not mean that they do not have special covenantal privileges, promises and responsibilities, as do the children of believers in another sense. Unbelief turns these things into liabilities before God.

It also does not mean that God can glorify Himself through them as He sees fit. No-one is obsessed with Christless Jewishness but misguided Dispensationalists, Christian Zionists and Messianic Jews.

The Apostle in this passage recognises that ethnic Jews exist and that God has a plan to incrementally save them. Surely even you recognise this. This doesn't mean that converted or unconverted Jews are inheretly superior to anyone else.

All we are saying is that this passage also teaches a future reingrafting of the nation which will be associated with a greater richness for the Gentiles than hitherto i.e. an outpouring of the Spirit.

L
Indeed, the statement, "Jews and Greeks still exist as entities both in and outside the Church - which is the Israel of God!!" gives up a truth affirmed earlier, "it's always been believers that are the true Israel anyway."The trick now is to explain which Israel is the subject of Romans 11, and which Israel Paul referring to in Romans 9:6-8, "Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed." The Israel of Christ Jesus is the Israel of God.

The Olive Tree is the Church. True believers in the Church are the true Israel of God. Most ethnic Jews are cut out because of unbelief. But God is still dealing with these ethnic Jews covenantally and is re-engrafting them incrementally.

You can be outwardly and legally in a covental relationship with God without being a true believer and having true covenant life.
This is true not only of the Jews but unbelievers who are baptised and take the Lord's Supper. It's just double-trouble to them if they don't believe. They eat and drink (added) judgment to themselves.

In Romans 11 our Apostle is speaking of the relationship of Jewry and the Church in New Covenant redemptive history.

Quote from L
Both Reformed and 'Rapture Ready' Israel futurism operate under the 'stopped-prophetic-clock' presumption that a purely ethnic Israel (currently dressed in the geopolitical suit provided in 1948 by "the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience") did not receive, when Christ fulfilled all God's promises to Israel, the blessing to which it was entitled. The Word of God proclaims, not only has the blessing already come, but its reception is an accomplished fact performed by God's soverign will: "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:12,13)."

There is no sense of blessing yet-to-be-received (in the form of a futuristic conversion event) in the words of Peter to the men of Israel in Acts 3:24-26, "Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days. Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities."

Neither Jews nor Gentiles are entitled to anything, but God deals with them in judgment and mercy in a covenantal way. God could have wiped out ethnic Israel as an entity in AD 70 but He didn't. Even you have acknowledged that God in His mercy still has a plan of incremental salvation for the Jews, as the Apostle says.

The futuristic conversion event of the Jews is not unique since all nations are going to have future conversion events, until "the Earth is filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea." (Habakkuk 2:14)
 
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Dear Brother Richard,

I think I'll end my contribution to this thread by making a single adjustment to your concluding comment:

"The _ongoing_ conversion event of the Jews is not unique . . ."

Other than that, we are in total agreement "since all nations are going to have future conversion events, until 'the Earth is filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea'." (Habakkuk 2:14)

May our loving Lord bless you and yours,

Bruce
 
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