Reply to MF Blume

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MF Blume wrote:
> I must say I disagree with this thought.
> This is a good post Brother Blume, I'll enjoy our trek throught the word! 
:-)  I have shortened the post somewhat hoping to leave intact the main 
issue.  If I have not kept the focus of your post please forgive me and 
let me know so I will not misappropraite what you are writing.

> Rom 11:2  God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew...
> 
> This is talking about the Israelites.  Jews.  They are God's people -
> present tense in Paul's day.  That was after they rejected Christ.
> 
> > So who is Antichrist.  All those that deny that Jesus is the Christ.  Are
> > the Jews Antichrist.
> 
> No.  God blinded HIS PEOPLE, Israel.  John was not talking about Jews,
> but gnostics.

My question would be then, Is it antichrist for a gnostic to deny that 
Jesus is the Christ and not antichrist for a Jew to deny that Jesus is 
the Christ? I am looking forward to your response.
> 
> They are God's people, blinded for a season so that the Gentiles might
> come in.  You see, God saved us by mercy.
> 
> Rom 11:30  For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have
> now obtained mercy through their unbelief:
> 
> Through their unbelief, we obtained mercy.  God blinded them so they
> could not believe.  And now, for Him to later turn back to them,
> it will be God's mercy that saves them also.
> I agree that we (gentiles) obtained mercy through thier unbelief for the 
promises were unto them.  They were blinded to those promises, yes.  I do 
not agree that it was *God* that *directly* blinded them so that they 
could not see.  Just as I do not believe that it was God that *directly* 
hardened Pharos heart.  It was God’s goodness toward Pharo in that He 
sent the plagues, for they caused Pharo to repent and the scriptures tell 
us that it is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance.  God 
always acted towards Pharo through Goodness and Mercy.  But Pharo 
rejected the goodness of God just as the Jew rejected his goodness 
through Jesus Christ.

I hope that this post is not too long and if it is I will try to be more 
concise.

Please allow me to clarify my position.  Verse 1 of Romans 10 Paul says, 
I say hath God cast away His people?  God forbid.  For I also am an 
Israelite.

I think Paul is qualifying the remarks he made in Chapter 9 making 
certain that one could not draw the conclusion that Israel was rejected, 
presenting himself as proof, that they were not.  Paul’s appeal to his 
own salvation when he was so adamantly opposed to the gospel (Galations 
1:13-14) exemplifies that God’s mercy had not forsaken Israel! The 
invincible truth is that salvation is of the Jews.  (John 4:22)  And so 
Romans 9:16 “not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but God 
that sheweth mercy”  Israel was not rejected.

Verse two Paul is in reference to those who realized the promise.  Paul 
reefers to Elijahs day to illustrate the preserving power of a faithful 
remnant.  There was a great defection among the Jews that seemed total, 
yet when Elijah prayed about the situation God told him there were 7000 
who had not defected.  Israel who would have been altogether cut off, was 
preserved through the remnant, and so the whole of Israel was delivered 
and the defectors were destroyed.  The significance is that the remnant 
had for the nation of Israel as a whole.  The remnant stands for the 
Jewish Christians who are ONE with the Gentile Believers and stands in 
contrast to hardened Israel!  

This is the basis for my accretion that when John writes and answers who 
is antichrist, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ, those 
rejecting Jesus as the Christ were part of the whole of that antichrist 
system.  And it would then seem to me that you cannot call those 
rejecting Christ the elect nor the remnant because of Paul’s argument.

Paul is writing to the Gentiles instructing them concerning racial Israel 
in chapters 9-11 of Romans.  It seems to have been written with the 
design of checking a growing Gentile movement toward serperatism.  Paul 
an apostle to the Gentiles, had on the one hand Judaism touting it's 
claim to the promises of God through natural descendancy, and on the 
other hand, some of the Gentiles who misunderstood Israel's *blindness* 
to mean that God had *rejected* Israel in favor of them.  I believe that 
Paul would have none of it, for the gospel to the Gentiles was anchored 
in God's promise and faithfulness to *Israel* (Romans 15:8).

Gentiles need to understand that they are an *extention* of God's promise 
to Israel and not Israel's displacement (Rom 11:18 the root bears you and 
not you bear the root).  The hope of the Gentiles and the validity of the 
gospel does not lie in the rejection, but the receiving of Israel (Romans 
11:12-15).  *Would you reread that Mark?*  IMHO the correct sentiment is 
to keep the Gentiles tied to Israel without being brought under the old 
covenant order (temple worship, law keeping, circumcision, etc.).

The root cause of Israel’s rejection of the gospel, was, unbelief in the 
promise and faithfulness of God.  Paul shows that the promise of God is 
true because it is *not* grounded in the natural descendancy of Abraham. 
(Romans 9:6-8).

'In Isaac shall thy seed be called' is proof that the promise was 
qualified by something other than lineage, for Ishmael was rejected 
although he was of Abraham.  We understand Ishmael is born of the flesh - 
Issac is born of the Spirit, therefore the children of promise are 
determined by faith in the operation of God and not by natural 
descendancy. Yet Paul uses Ishmael to stand for Old Covenant Israel (born 
of the flesh) who were actually the natural lineage of Isaac.

Again in Romans 9:10-13 Jacob and Esau, twins, yet one is counted as the 
promise. How could either be rejected if both were somehow qualified by 
natural descent?  What special relationship does Esau have with God?  He 
qualifies by natural descent, yet is rejected!  This point is further 
emphasized by the statement, 'for the children not yet born...that the 
purpose of God according to election might stand.'

The answer lies in that Isaac's natural descendants were *bearers of* the 
promise but not counted *as* the promise.  Israel was the depositary of 
the promise not the promise itself.  Galations 3:16 Now to Abraham and 
his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; 
but as of one, And to thy seed, *which is Christ*.   The NT opens with 
John the baptist saying they could not rely upon progenitry for God could 
raise stones up as children unto Abraham if he so chose. 

After Christ came, there was no longer a need to have a bearer 
(depositary) of the promise of a coming messiah, for Christ is the seed! 
 The position that Israel enjoyed as the bearer of the promise was 
fulfilled in the coming of the seed.  And so thier special relationship 
is no longer needed to bring about the promise for the promise has 
arrived in the person Jesus Christ.  The vessles of the promise are now 
those filled with His spirit and baptized in His name!

It is my understanding that the interim from the cross to the parousia 
should be viewed as 'two dimensions of the one age changing escaton'. 
(Maxx King, The Cross and the Parousia of Christ).  He writes and I 
agree, ''... to show that Christ's cross and parousia (i.e. His presence 
or arrival commonly called the second coming) are the two foci of one 
complete, indivisable eschaton (end time) that pertain to the fulfillment 
of all redemptive history and prophecy within the closing period (the 
last days) of the Old Testament aeon (age).'' 

Your concept of the end days may not be totally in harmony with that 
presented in the scriptures.  If you understand Matthew 24:3 to be a 
question that pertains to our future, then you and I have our differences 
as to what the end of the *world* means.  I believe your view of the end 
time is yet future.  Yet Paul repeatedly referenced the end time to *his* 
day.  Phil 4:5 The Lord is at hand. Rom 13:12 The night is far spent, the 
day is at hand:.  The end time then would mean the end of the Old 
Testament time.

Your future concept of end time would account for the idea of a 
protracted blindness of Israel.  Such a view would then require the 
rebuilding of the Temple with a reinstitution of sacrificial worship and 
some sort of 'special relationship' afforded to natural Israel on the 
basis of descent.

It is impossible not to avoid the conclusion that the New Testament 
applies the Old Testament prophecies concerning Israel to the church. 

A good example is found in Romans 9:24-26.  'Even *us*, whom he hath 
called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?'  Paul is 
addressing the church in Rome which included Jews and Gentile, Paul an 
Israelite and the Gentile Romans are the *us*.  To prove God called such 
a people into being he quotes Hosea.  Read carefully the passages he 
qoutes from Hosea and you will find they refer to the literal national 
Israel, not to gentiles!  Both prophecies, 1) Hosea 1:10 and 2) Hosea 
2:23 concern national Israel yet Paul deliberately takes these two 
prophecies of salvation for national *Israel* and applies them to the 
*Christian Church*.  So we see the prophecies that concern Israel are 
actually fulfilled in the Church!  Not two distinct peoples but one 
Israel.  Those that were the depsoitary of the promise of God by faith, 
and those that are the vessels of the promise. 

As to Israel's blindness.  Israel's failed to see that natural birth did 
not qualify them of God's promise to Abraham.  The preaching of the New 
Testament opens with John the Baptist saying, '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.'  God 
could have deposited his promise in stones!  In other words you who think 
that your descent qualifies you are blind for God is able to use whatever 
means He chose to accomplish His will.

God finalized His promise to *Israel* through Christ and the demise of 
the temple gave voice to the exclaimation point of God's *faithfulness* 
to Israel of bringing in a New Covenant making the Old obsolete (Jer. 
31:31).  Those Israelists who refused God's provision (the cross, 
pentecost, etc.) suffered the consequences of holding to that which had 
become obsolete.  God was faithful to Israel all along and still 
is......If they continue not in unbelief, but to grant them special 
priviledge based upon descent is to nullify the gospel message entirely!

Gal 3:27-29  For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have 
put on 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.   And if ye be Christ's, *then* are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs 
according to the promise.

If I understand Galations 3 concerning the seed and the need, then Paul 
is acerting that if ye be Christ's, *THEN AND ONLY THEN* are you Abrahams 
seed and hiers according to the promise.

I agree the believing Jew/Gentile *have* a role to play concerning Israel 
Romans 11:12-15