c l a s s i c a l
Have you noticed how eager Christian apostates are to link arms and defend Muslims, while they barely deign to tolerate the Jewish people (link)? Yes, calling such persons "Christian apostates" is merely my opinion, and does not necessarily indicate that such are actually apostates. Only God knows the heart, and only He is the Judge of all the earth (Gen. 18:25).
But I am led to wonder: Why such eagerness to affirm and defend followers of a religion whose false god, Allah, calls for either the conversion or extermination of the heathen, and the overt annihilation of the Jewish people? To what gain? Based on what premise(s)?
I also wonder: Do such apostates not understand how offensive such an affirmation is to the God of Israel? The Judeo-Christian God is not the God of Islam; He is the God of Israel (1 Chron. 15:14; Ps. 41:13; Matt. 15:31), the God of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 11:31; Eph. 1:17), the God of all believers (Phil. 4:20; Titus 2:10), but not the God of Islam.
I have no doubt that my absolute hatred for an anti-Israel disposition derives from my Dispensational upbringing, and I do not regret it even in the slightest. This was the same rearing which gave me a high view of Scripture, namely, the doctrine of inerrancy.
Dispensationalism aside, the apostle Paul informed us that God has not rejected His Jewish people (Rom. 11:1, 2), that He still retains a remnant of them who come to Him by grace through faith in Christ (Rom. 11:5, 6), and that the Jewish people, though they have metaphorically "stumbled," are not entirely fallen (Rom. 11:11).
The "stumbling" of the Jewish people -- meaning that they did not receive their long-awaited Messiah Jesus -- has given way for God's grace to be operative to the Gentiles (Rom. 11:11-12). Even today, if a Jewish person will by grace trust in Christ, he or she will be saved (Rom. 11:23). Paul was inspired to write that only "a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved" (Rom. 11:25-26 ESV).
Statements and promises such as these were not made to Muslims but to Jews. Yet, those who take for themselves the name of Christian smack the Jew in the proverbial face and ameliorate the Muslim! Such apostates offend the very God they claim to worship and serve.
Do not misunderstand me. God is graciously saving Muslims through Christ as He is those throughout the rest of the world. This is not an anti-Muslim rant; this is a pro-Israel, pro-Christ, pro-Christian Faith message. This is a message against Christian apostates and heretics like Episcopalians rector Ed Bacon and Gene Robinson (link), damnable heretics like John Shelby Spong (link and link), and those who erroneously think that the god Muslims worship is the same God that Christians worship (link).
An anti-Israel disposition also seems to be a fulfillment of biblical prophecy of an end-times proportion. If Jesus was speaking of the Jewish people, contextually, then the statement "and you will be hated by all nations on account of My name" (Matt. 24:9; cf. Matt. 10:22) is quickly finding its fulfillment -- even among some professing Christians.
How this concept might correspond with John's revelation of the nations surrounding Israel for attack (Rev. 20:7-9) is not entirely clear. Much depends upon one's hermeneutic and eschatology. What we can know with certainty is that the "end times" seem to carry an anti-Israel bias, and there are an increasing amount of professing Christians adopting this unbiblical notion.
What perplexes me most is the double standard and hypocrisy of these Christian apostates. Their openness toward Muslims originates, no doubt, from a humanistic, shallow, sort of "love thy neighbor" stint. Yet, they hypocritically refuse to show the same brotherly love toward Jews. Why? Do they not also need love? Are they not also worthy of respect as human beings created in the image of God?
Such apostates would do the world a service by reading God's word. The apostle Paul himself could wish himself accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of the Jewish people (Rom. 9:3). Such empathy today is denied the Jew and unconditionally rendered to the Muslim! Regarding the Jewish people for whom Paul would count himself accursed, he continued:
They are Israelites, and to them belong [present tense] the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. (Rom. 9:4-5 ESV)
Those blessings of God remain to this day, for "the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" (Rom. 11:29 ESV). If God is still being gracious to the Jewish people through Christ, then who are we to treat them with any less respect?
William,
ReplyDeleteVery well said. AMEN, AMEN
Martin Luther and his treatment of the Jews came to mind. It's almost like Romans 11 is almost completely ignored.
Russ
Hear, hear! Well said, William.
ReplyDeleteThank you both so much!!! An anti-Jewish attitude is very disturbing to me. I think antisemiticism is demonic in nature. Of course, hatred for any minority group is unChristian at best and demonic at worst.
ReplyDeleteAs a Christian Zionist, I could not agree more. There is a great offense in the world and it has permeated our own society to the point it admires the murderer and abhors the innocent.
ReplyDeletePSALM 122:6
A.M.M.,
DeleteSo very well put!!
Saint Nicholas beggs to differ... :-) Is he a Christian apostate as well ? :D
ReplyDeleteYou can wrestle with Scripture itself, not me, haha. You can choose Saint Nicholas or the Apostle Paul. I'll take the latter.
DeleteNot really sure which Scripture I'm supposed to wrestle with, or why. Or why I'm to choose between two Saints.
DeleteWell, Romans 11 for starters; and only one of those saints' writings were inspired of God.
DeleteWhat in Romans 11, or any other chapter, for that matter, do you want me to see ?
DeleteThe whole chapter would be nice; and then think about your link: "Santa Claus Siding With Muslims In The Arab-Israeli Conflict."
DeleteWhich part of it, precisely ?
DeleteHow about all of the quotes from Romans 11 in the post itself -- all the ones relating to God's covenant with Israel -- the Jews -- and not Muslims?
DeleteHow about Zechariah 2:8 and Genesis 12:3, with regard to the Jewish people, not the Muslims?
DeleteTo the Jewish people, not the Muslim, says God: "And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you" (Gen. 17:7).
Delete"I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me" (Jer. 32:40).
The point of this post, as should be painfully obvious, is that any semblance of anti-Jewish sentiments are ungodly and unbiblical.
In my humble opinion, those words were spoken to Israel as God's people, not to them as a race. When or if the Jews decide to be His people again, He will keep His word to them. "Turn to Me, and I will turn to you", as Zechariah himself wrote just a chapter earlier. Until then, I'd be less inclined to demand of God that He keep His promises to an entity not currently in existence... Unless you're refering to the few members of the Orthodox Church in Jerusalem, who have been both Semites and Christians for the last two thousand years.
DeleteI don't agree at all. There were no Jewish people "as a race" before God called Abraham, and made a covenant with him and all of his descendents, with the exception of Ishmael. (Hence the Muslim had/has no inherent claim to God's covenant.)
DeleteThe Jews "as a race" were/are considered God's corporate, covenant people, regardless of each Jewish person's individual faith or lack thereof. He is not done with the Jewish people "as a race" (Rom. 11:1, 2, 11, 23).
Even today the Muslim does not have a claim to the Abrahamic covenant, nor do the Gentiles, apart from Christ. But when the Muslim receives Christ, he is no longer a Muslim religiously. All in Christ are actually, spiritually, Jewish (cf. Rom. 2:28-29).
Furthermore, if you ponder a bit, the Jewish people are not really an ethnic race, in a strict sense, since the only aspect of the Jews that qualifies that name is the fact that God chose to establish an everlasting covenant with Abraham and his offspring; that is all that makes those people "Jewish." They are not a race in the same sense as, say, Asians, Africans, Spaniards, Latinos, etc.
Deleteregardless of each Jewish person's individual faith or lack thereof
DeleteIndividual ? Yes. Corporate ? No.
Nor did I say that God was "done" with them; just that they don't currently qualify as His people any longer.
Perhaps the best medicine for you right now, to cure you of these ideas, is to come face to face with what pious Jews sincerely believe about the Son of God and His mother: that He was a vile blasphemer and a wicked heretic, burning in Gehenna as we speak, and that His mother was an impure woman. Perhaps this will finally calm your misguided exegesis once and for all. Speaking about "offending God". You mention the word anti-Jewish. I will mention the word anti-Christ (1 John 4:3).
DeleteThere is a Biblical/historical pattern, Billy: the first-ranking of all Angels fell and became a demon; the first-born son of Adam and Eve murdered his own brother and his place was taken by the righteous Seth; the first-born of Isaac was supposed to be Esau, but he withdrew to his motehr's womb, and his brother Jacob/Israel was born before him, to the midwife's stunning surprise; the first-born of Jacob-Israel rebelled against his father by sleeping with his concubine, and his place was given to Judah; the people of Israel are also called in Scripture God's first-born, but when they denied the Son of God and rejected Him and His teaching, their place as God's people was giuven to the mostly-Gentile Church; the first-ranking of patriarchs, the bishop of Rome, fell into heresy 1,000 years ago, and his place of honor was given to someone else; etc. There's no such thing as `once saved, always saved`.
Delete... and Isaac is identified by Saint Paul with the Christian Church, not with Israel (Galatians 4:22-31). [Sorry for the fourth post in a row].
DeleteWell, I never claimed that they were orthodox. The thrust of this post confronts anti-Jewish sentiments -- something which any believer should stand against -- especially when hypocritically affirming Muslims.
DeleteWe'll have to agree to disagree on the rest.
Moreover, I think you're terribly wrong and completely off on identifying Isaac with Paul and the Church and not with Israel. The most one can say in reference to Galatians 4:22-31 is that Ishmael and Isaac represent law and grace, or trying to earn favor with God through fleshly means rather than receive His promise by grace through faith, not whatever Ishmael is supposed to represent and St Paul and the Church.
DeleteThat's what Paul is saying, so I don't understand what your objection is.
DeleteIsaac does not represent Paul or the Church.
Delete"Salvation is from the Jews," said Jesus Himself (John 4:22). Jesus came to save "His people," meaning, the Jewish people (Matt. 1:21; cf. John 1:11). When a Gentile becomes a believer, he or she is grafted in to a Jewish olive tree (Rom. 11:17).
DeleteGod's Jewish people are experiencing a partial hardening (Rom. 11:25), by which some of them have been "broken off" of the olive tree (Rom. 11:17). If they will trust in Christ then they will be grafted back in, since they are the "natural" branches of the tree to begin with (Rom. 11:17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23).
To dismiss the Jewish people as not God's people is to do harm to the New Testament itself. Yet, in Christ, Jew and Gentile are made into one new person (Eph. 2:14). Why one? Because there were two: Jew, and Gentile.
I'm afraid he does, since that's what Paul says.
DeleteNo one denied that Christ, our Salvation, was Jewish, as were the very first Christians.
If they've been broken off, they're not part of the tree any longer. And for as long as they're hardened by unrepentance, the promises are off.
The Jews we're talking about are not "in Christ". They're the ones that rejected Him. As for the few that did receive Him, we are indeed one with them.
You're talking as if their mass apostasy never happened.
Delete"And for as long as they're hardened by unrepentance, the promises are off."
DeleteYou are wrong again. Paul says that the promises, as well as the adoption as sons, the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the service all belongs to Israel still (Rom. 9:5).
You and I will never agree on this. Or, let me put it this way, I will never agree with your views on this matter.
"You're talking as if their mass apostasy never happened."
DeleteAnd you're talking as if God is through His Jewish people and has discarded them, when He, clearly, has not (Rom. 11:1, 2).
How can I be "talking as if their mass apostasy never happened" when I keep on affirming their need of being grafted back in to the olive tree?
Delete*Correction in the above reference to Romans 9:5; it should be Romans 9:4-5.
DeleteYes, Paul used the present tense two thousand years ago, when these things were still true.
DeleteI never said that God has discarded them. Just that they are currently discarding Him. And as long as they'll "keep up the good work", the "promises" [which word refered primarily to the promise of the Messiah -- you know... the One they rejected and crucified], are currently not theirs. When they'll change their mind, the discussion changes. Not sooner.
Two thousand years ago, when these thing were still true? When did they become not true?
DeleteIf Scripture calls the Jewish people "His people," or "God's people," then how can you say that they are not? If the adoption, as Paul explicitly states, still belongs to the Jewish people, then how can you say that it does not?
There is nothing in Scripture noting that as long as they "keep up the good work" that the promises are theirs. The promise is there, it remains, and they are still His people. Where is your bias against the Jewish people coming from?
When they turned their back on God, and only became more and more hardened in their unbelief as time went by. Basically, after 90 AD, Christians were no longer allowed in Jewish synagogues. But -if you read Acts- you see that many times the Apostles either preach in synagogues or go to the Temple in Jerusalem, etc.
DeleteSomeone who rejects God is obviously no longer a man of God, nor part of God's people. The Book of Revelations calls them a synagogue of Satan, for instance (2:9, 3:9).
They were adopted as His people during the time of Abraham: so theirs was still the adoption in Christ's time. Saint Paul also mentions that theirs are the sacrifices (present tense), as he wrote his letter before 70 AD. Obviously the sacrifices were no longer theirs after that time, when the Temple was destroyed.
I was being sarcastic: I meant as long as they "keep up the good work" of turning their backs on their own God and Saviour.
When they turned their back on God, and only became more and more hardened in their unbelief as time went by. Basically, after 90 AD, Christians were no longer allowed in Jewish synagogues. But -if you read Acts- you see that many times the Apostles either preach in synagogues or go to the Temple in Jerusalem, etc.
DeleteSo, without Scripture, you have figured that the Jewish people were no longer considered God's people, though Paul said that they were in Romans 9-11. I see.
And yet, there are no such conditions in Romans 9-11, such as you are imposing on Scripture. Where is Romans 9:4-5 do you see such conditions?
They were adopted as His people during the time of Abraham: so theirs was still the adoption in Christ's time.
And after Christ's time, as Paul explicitly teaches in Romans.
Saint Paul also mentions that theirs are the sacrifices (present tense), as he wrote his letter before 70 AD.
Where does Paul also mention that theirs are the sacrifices (present tense)?
"the service [worship, latreia] of God". (I was quoting from memory).
DeleteAnd Romans 9:6 or the Book of Revelations were very much part of the Bible the last time I checked.
During Paul's time, we still had many conversions, especially in the Jewish Diaspora, and the dialogue was far from over. But it DID cease eventually, as did the conversions from Judaism, around the turn of the first century, and not because of us. So it would have been absurd for Paul to write anything else than what he did at that particular point in time, given the circumstances. [Christ already prophesied before-hand that no prophet is received in his own country]. Of course, the Jewish Church in Jerusalem still exists, as do other Semitic Churches also, albeit the latter are Oriental Orthodox, not Eastern Orthodox (Coptic, Syrian, Assyrian, Ethiopian). By that time [100 AD], the "spoils" were already pretty much divided, and nothing's changed eversince. Well, it did: Islam came, and (re-)took almost all of this Semitic-Christian world (back) to a religion similar to Judaism. Christian Semites are unfortunately only a "remnant", as Paul himself wrote some two thousand years ago.
The latreía is temple service (NASB), not sacrifices, as you imposed on the text.
DeleteYou can pretend that the Jewish people are not God's people if you want to, but it doesn't make it so. "To the Jew first, but also the Gentile" (Rom. 1:16; 2:9, 10) will always remain, biblically. You can replace the Jews with the Church if you want to, but it doesn't make it so.
When God shall bless His Jewish people once again, they will sing for joy and be glad, "'for behold I am coming and I will dwell in your midst,' declares the Lord. 'Many nations will join themselves to the Lord in that day and will become My people. Then I will dwell in your midst, and you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent Me to you. The Lord will possess Judah as His portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem.'" (Zech. 2:10-12 NASB)
DeleteHe who touches/harms Israel touches/harms the apple of God's eye (Zech. 2:8; cf. Gen. 12:3).
The seventieth seek of Daniel, the last week which has yet to find its fulfillment, concerns God's Jewish people (Dan. 9:24). The seven weeks, and the sixty-two weeks, were fulfilled to the day. We expect the final week to be fulfilled likewise.
You can replace the Jews with the Church if you want to, but it doesn't make it so
DeleteI'm not the one saying it, Billy: Paul is (Rom. 9:6, Galatians 4:22-31), and so are Jesus (in John 8:39-45) and Saint John (in his epistles [1 John 4:3] and revelation [2:9, 3:9]).
I also never said that the Jews may not one day turn back and repent, and inherit God's promises along with us. But without repentance, they wilfully cut themselves off from God and His Kingdom and His promises and from life everlasting (John 8:24).
Billy,
DeleteGod Himself touched and harmed Israel, through Cyrus in 600 BC and the Romans in 70 AD. A Father punishes His children.
The latreía is temple service (NASB)
DeleteAnd, as I said, there was no Temple after 70 AD. So Paul did not imply permanence, but merely described the then-current situation. And the same goes for the rest of the things mentioned in that passage.
Basically your error consists in treating words like Israel without the qualifications that Christ and His Apostles include. For Jesus Himself, being a son of Abraham was about immitating his deeds, not about physical descendence [John 8:39-45]. For Paul, only those faithful to God were the true Israel [Rom 9:6]. For the same Apostle, as for Jesus earlier, Isaac represented spiritual -as opposed to physical- descendence [Galatians 4:22-31]. Ishmael was the one embodying physical descendance, and he was cast out, together with his mother Agar, representing the physical Jerusalem [v. 25], which is opposed to the spiritual Jerusalem [v. 26]. The same idea of a heavenly or spiritual city is repeated by Saint John in the Book of Revelations. You ignore all these qualifiers, and read the Bible through an exegetical lens that is compeltely foreign to Christ and His Apostles, as well as all Christians that came after them, throughout history.
DeleteBasically, your error consists in ignoring all of God's promises, both conditional and unconditional, to Israel, whom He has not rejected, not after 70 AD, not now, not ever. You continue to ignore the fact that God's covenant with Israel was an everlasting one.
DeleteYou can try to wrest Paul and Jesus and John's words in Scripture to suit your view, but I think you err a most serious and dreadful error, especially dreadful for God's Jewish people.
Five hours is quite long enough given to this subject. Thanks for the engaging exchange.
Delete