Christ is Israel

[Orion]

8 minutes ago, AdHoc said:

Not so. The "and" between "peace and mercy" is the same word ("kai") as the word your translation renders "even so". It is a conjunction, joining two different things like it joins "peace" and "mercy". "And" is cumulative, copulative and sequential. The context also forbids "even so" as Israel is CONTRASTED wit the New Man. The whole book forbids this as it CONTRASTS the Galatian saints with Israel. The New Man is taken OUT OF the Nations and the NATION of Israel (Ephesians 2:15) and has NO ethnicity (3:28). It is a fully New Creature with no past (2nd Cor.5:17).

Keep in mind that God's plan of creation and redemption was made in eternity past.  It's not man's plan, but sovereign God's plan. 

Also keep in mind that in God’s plan of creation and redemption, that among everyone God could have chosen, God sovereignly chose  Israel to be a light to people from every nation of the earth. 

The Bible only speaks of God sovereignly choosing one nation to be the light to the rest of the world, not any other nation.  That nation was Israel. 

Knowing all the foregoing, also keep in mind that in God's sovereign plan, He planned to send from Judah the True Light to the people of every nation. That true light is actually not the nation of Israel, but is the one that God promised would come to crush the head of Satan, the Seed of Genesis 3:15, which is the Messiah spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, which is the infant child whom Simeon held in his arms at the temple and praised God that the light to the Gentiles had finally come.  That infant child was God Himself, Yeshua Mashiach, Emmanuel, God in the flesh entering His own creation reconciling fallen sinful man to Himself.  This was all part of God's plan from eternity past and finally revealed in Christ. 

The point Paul is making is that God, in His sovereignty, chose whom He did to serve His purpose in unveiling His plan.  And God's plan from eternity past was the formation and assembling of the body of Christ, which Paul calls the Israel of God, which in the end of this age will be the complete assembling of all people of faith from every generation from the beginning of time to the end of this age who had faith in God's promised Seed.  The Bible calls this great assembly the ekklesia, the body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, the Israel of God. 

[Anne2]

36 minutes ago, Luther said:

Genesis 34:13 KJV
And the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father deceitfully, and said, because he had defiled Dinah their sister:

Right. They had no intention of letting them take Dinah for a wife for their son. That was the deceit. They wanted them to sore to take them out...Jacob knew nothing of this. Jacob only knew they had agreed to what the sons had told them.

[Luther]

I just wanted to reiterate Isaiah 44.

Isaiah 44:1-3 KJV
Yet now hear, O Jacob my servant; and Israel, whom I have chosen:

[2] Thus saith the LORD that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee; Fear not, O Jacob, my servant; and thou, Jesurun, whom I have chosen. 

[3] For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring:

" I will pour my spirit upon thy seed"

Isaiah 45:25 KJV
In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.

Isaiah 53:10 KJV
Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

Is there anyone that does not believe that the seed of Christ is spoken of in the Old Testament?  Imagine The 12 tribes of Israel scattered a very long time ago going into other lands and teaching the people Old Testament religion, the law of God and then finding out about Jesus through the spreading of the Gospel.

Hosea 1:10 KJV
Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.

Romans 9:25-26 KJV
As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.

[26] And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.

[Lery_27]

14 minutes ago, Anne2 said:

Right. They had no intention of letting them take Dinah for a wife for their son. That was the deceit. They wanted them to sore to take them out...Jacob knew nothing of this. Jacob only knew they had agreed to what the sons had told them.

Exactly, Jacob was out of the loop until it was too late.

[Luther]

27 minutes ago, Anne2 said:

Right. They had no intention of letting them take Dinah for a wife for their son. That was the deceit. They wanted them to sore to take them out...Jacob knew nothing of this. Jacob only knew they had agreed to what the sons had told them.

There was a similar incident in Esther as well. I recently watched a sermon from one of the very few pastors I have similar views with. He laid out the rules of engagement that God gave Israel when they went to battle. It was interesting because there were only seven tribes that he wanted completely wiped out, Men, women, children, cattle even the suckling babies (In which Israel did not completely do).

But that wasn't the case with the rest of Israel's enemies. It's leading me to another study to see what these seven ( perfect) tribes had to do with the lineage of Cain.

My belief is that no murderer enters the kingdom of God. And these tribes that were supposed to be completely wiped out I also believe represented the sin of the earth, hence God wanting their total destruction.

Even though Israel was not perfect  (sinless), they were used as an earthly representation of God's kingdom for a time. Had they obeyed they would have inherited all the blessings  (Deuteronomy 28).

What ended up happening was the people that they were supposed to eliminate mixed in with them. And as a consequence the people we have today running things so to speak I believe have the heritage of those seven Nations.

That's why I look at the seed of Cain the way I do. It started way before the disobedience of Israel and I think it's just as spiritual as the seed of Christ, In that there is a particular group of them with the spirit of Satan.

Sorry for rambling but you have essentially two groups of people....saved and unsaved.

But in a more definitive sense, you have three groups of people. Born again believers who will never lose their salvation, the spiritual seed of Cain which I believe ( not to be dogmatic) are unredeemable ( these are the murderers the pedophiles, the rapists the most wicked people on earth), and then you have the vast majority in the middle. They can be swayed either way. They may not become saved and they may not become satanists, but surely their thoughts and actions can be influenced by the opposing parties.

And that's basically the sad situation we have today. It used to be where most people ( in this country especially) were influenced by Christians. Even if you didn't want to go to church, even if you didn't really care about God, you still had respect and you kind of did what everyone else did. I'm 60 years old and I remember growing up in the '70s. Much more innocent time for sure.

Well now we have an unrelenting influence from Cain, the children of the devil. Just looking around, it's pretty obvious.

 

Edited May 22 by Luther
made some corrections

[Michael37]

33 minutes ago, Orion said:

in eternity past. 

For edification and illumination, since by definition eternity has no beginning or end, it has presence, but no past or future, which are things relative to points in time.

A minor technicality often ignored.

[Michael37]

48 minutes ago, Luther said:

Actually my  friend, the whole point of this post is to beautify the name Israel because it is intimately associated with Christ and His people. It always has been.

Amen.

Isa 11:10-12  And in that day there shall be the Root of Jesse standing for a banner of the people; to Him the nations shall seek; and His resting place shall be glorious.  (11)  And it shall be in that day, the Lord shall again set His hand, the second time, to recover the remnant of His people that remains, from Assyria and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Ethiopia, and from Persia, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the coasts of the sea.  (12)  And He shall lift up a banner for the nations, and shall gather the outcasts of Israel and gather together the scattered ones of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

[Orion]

3 minutes ago, Michael37 said:

For edification and illumination, since by definition eternity has no beginning or end, it has presence, but no past or future, which are things relative to points in time.

A minor technicality often ignored.

 

True.  It's funny, because I tell people that the day I was saved was the day my eternal life in Christ began.  And when you think of it, even though the Bible tells us there was a beginning, it was simply the beginning of time, space, and matter over which God in eternity has sovereign control. 

I suppose I use the term "eternity past" to make the distinction understandable between the present age and eternity ... past.  Now I feel like I'm on a never ending merry-go-round. 😂 

[Luther]

2 hours ago, Orion said:

Keep in mind that God's plan of creation and redemption was made in eternity past.  It's not man's plan, but sovereign God's plan. 

Also keep in mind that in God’s plan of creation and redemption, that among everyone God could have chosen, God sovereignly chose  Israel to be a light to people from every nation of the earth. 

The Bible only speaks of God sovereignly choosing one nation to be the light to the rest of the world, not any other nation.  That nation was Israel. 

Knowing all the foregoing, also keep in mind that in God's sovereign plan, He planned to send from Judah the True Light to the people of every nation. That true light is actually not the nation of Israel, but is the one that God promised would come to crush the head of Satan, the Seed of Genesis 3:15, which is the Messiah spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, which is the infant child whom Simeon held in his arms at the temple and praised God that the light to the Gentiles had finally come.  That infant child was God Himself, Yeshua Mashiach, Emmanuel, God in the flesh entering His own creation reconciling fallen sinful man to Himself.  This was all part of God's plan from eternity past and finally revealed in Christ. 

The point Paul is making is that God, in His sovereignty, chose whom He did to serve His purpose in unveiling His plan.  And God's plan from eternity past was the formation and assembling of the body of Christ, which Paul calls the Israel of God, which in the end of this age will be the complete assembling of all people of faith from every generation from the beginning of time to the end of this age who had faith in God's promised Seed.  The Bible calls this great assembly the ekklesia, the body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, the Israel of God. 

Amen. Why the Oi vey?

[Michael37]

1 hour ago, Luther said:

Amen. Why the Oi vey?

Yeah, @Mr. M That was inappropriate use of a reaction icon, so I removed it.