The Restoration of Israel in the New Testament

[nebula]

Horizoneast and KatyAnn -

Do you believe this prophecy has been fulfilled yet? If so, please explain when and how?

Isaiah 43:1-7

1 But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine.

2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you.

3 For I am the Lord your God, The Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in your place.

4 Since you were precious in My sight, You have been honored, And I have loved you; Therefore I will give men for you, And people for your life.

5 Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your descendants from the east, And gather you from the west;

6 I will say to the north, 'Give them up!' And to the south, 'Do not keep them back!' Bring My sons from afar, And My daughters from the ends of the earth--

7 Everyone who is called by My name, Whom I have created for My glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him."

The return from Babyonian capticity came only from the west, yet this prophecy refers to all directions - north, south, east and west.

[nebula]

In the doctrine you are teaching when we study Romans 11 is the author expressing the idea that God (in His infinite wisdom) has used the conversion and acceptance of the Gentiles into His kingdom (the church) to make the Jews

[Guest shiloh357]

Horizon, this thread is not for you to argue with me about board policy. I don't really care if you like how I govern this thread. I am not accountable to you for how I handle what happens on this thread. I am accountable to the Lord and the modertors. So far, I am batting 1000.

There's a verse that expresses this - about Israel being a sign and a wonder to the people of the Earth, but I can't place it enough from my memory to find it. Shiloh, do you know which verse I'm talking about?

Hey Neb, not really sure what you are referring to. I will see if I can find anything.

There is an endtime fulfillment for Israel as Israel to reveal God's glory to the Earth!

AMEN!!

The Lord's purpose for Israel was to show His glory to the nations of the Earth, just as He purposes for us to show His glory

AMEN Again!!!

[Smalcald]

I find it fascinating though that God is using people who do not believe in Him to show His will. But really this matches His divine providence and in many ways as He states in Romans He has mercy on which He wills and He hardens whom He wills. I think if we look at the versus Shilo was going over originally in Romans, they are also the versus speaking of God being in control of salvation and faith and not us as humans. It is related to a different topic we have discussed on this board

But I wanted to ask you shilo do you think though that these things come together in one plan? I just have a hard time separating this, the physical promise and the spiritual promise. I know they are pointed out as different in the bible, but it seems to me that there is synergy, how could there not be? What is the physical promise worth really, is it really a promise or a prophecy?

Nebula,

A Jew must leave Judaism as it is practiced today to become a believer in Jesus Christ. Is that conversion? Well it certainly would seem to be, as any believer in Christ who is an ethnic Jew is automatically NOT considered a Jew anymore according to the law of Israel. You can be an atheist, you can deny God directly, and be fine, but if you claim Christ as Lord you are cut off. I find this amazing; it certainly sounds like conversion to me. I don't think we should ever mislead or water down the Word of God which proclaims that faith alone in Jesus Christ is salvation, or deny that we believe that Jesus Christ IS God, or pretend as if a Jew can still practice Judaism which rejects all claims of Christ as God. A God that does not include Christ and the Holy Spirit is a different God, a false God.

But I find it so amazing and comforting that the true promise of Christ as Paul points out for the Jewish people in Romans is their salvation, which will come with their faith in Christ, which Paul says God will make happen.

But this is off topic, and I want to get back to the study which Shilo is leading and I do find helpful.

[Guest shiloh357]

I find it fascinating though that God is using people who do not believe in Him to show His will.

That for me, is one of the most compelling arguments for the re-establishing of Israel.

Many of the Jews who founded Israel, were not believers. Going back, to the 1800s, Herzl the "father of modern Zionism" was a secular Jew. Many Jews who helped bring Israel back into being, were agnostics, atheists, or perhaps very liberal if religious at all.

So why is that important? If it had been Orthodox Jews who founded Israel, then it would have been dismissed as self-fulfilling prophecy. This is also true if the Jews had been believers in Jesus. As is, the Jews who founded Israel did not believe in the Bible and had no interest in fulfilling prophecy, and yet were in very uncanny way fulfilling the very words of the Bible. Even the Land purchased by the Jews from the Arab Sarsuks is prophesied by Jeremiah, and where the Land would be bought. The Jews returning to Israel purchased the very tracks of Land that Jeremiah said that they would purchase upon their return!!

God has throughout the Bible and in our day chosen the methods that would demonstrate His Hand in the matter. When the facts are examined regarding Israel's rebirth, it is unmistakably a work of God. Israel could not , under their own power have survived the Arab onslaught for the last 60 years. Not only did they survive, but they have gone on to be world leader in every field of endeavor they put their hands to.

In 2004 and 2005, an independent university ranking organization out of China, released its "500 top Universities in the World." Seven out of eight of Israel's universities made the cut. The Arabs had zero both years. Israel does not just survive. Israel stands as living reproach to Islam and its inability to adapt to the 21st century.

Israel had gone on to be leader while defending itself in wars of annihilation not of its own making, and while undergoing nearly 60 years and nonstop terrorism. Modern Israel a described in Zech. 12:6-9. It is amazing really.

[Scarletprayers]

So why is that important? If it had been Orthodox Jews who founded Israel, then it would have been dismissed as self-fulfilling prophecy. This is also true if the Jews had been believers in Jesus. As is, the Jews who founded Israel did not believe in the Bible and had no interest in fulfilling prophecy, and yet were in very uncanny way fulfilling the very words of the Bible. Even the Land purchased by the Jews from the Arab Sarsuks is prophesied by Jeremiah, and where the Land would be bought. The Jews returning to Israel purchased the very tracks of Land that Jeremiah said that they would purchase upon their return!!

Okay Shiloh, I'm hooked...........keep going!

[Smalcald]

So why is that important? If it had been Orthodox Jews who founded Israel, then it would have been dismissed as self-fulfilling prophecy. This is also true if the Jews had been believers in Jesus. As is, the Jews who founded Israel did not believe in the Bible and had no interest in fulfilling prophecy, and yet were in very uncanny way fulfilling the very words of the Bible. Even the Land purchased by the Jews from the Arab Sarsuks is prophesied by Jeremiah, and where the Land would be bought. The Jews returning to Israel purchased the very tracks of Land that Jeremiah said that they would purchase upon their return!!

Very good point, I had not considered it that way.

Do you have the supports for the matching of what the Jews bought from the Arab Sarsuks in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the passages from Jeremiah? Which passages in Jeremiah is this described? I am not questioning your data, I just need it, I think it is a powerful tool for those who don't believe God has any role in modern prophetic events.

[nebula]

The only thing I can think of is Jeremiah 32

6 And Jeremiah said, "The word of the Lord came to me, saying, 7 'Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle will come to you, saying, "Buy my field which is in Anathoth, for the right of redemption is yours to buy it." ' 8 Then Hanamel my uncle's son came to me in the court of the prison according to the word of the Lord, and said to me, 'Please buy my field that is in Anathoth, which is in the country of Benjamin; for the right of inheritance is yours, and the redemption yours; buy it for yourself.' Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord. 9 So I bought the field from Hanamel, the son of my uncle who was in Anathoth, and weighed out to him the money--seventeen shekels of silver. 10 And I signed the deed and sealed it, took witnesses, and weighed the money on the scales. 11 So I took the purchase deed, both that which was sealed according to the law and custom, and that which was open; 12 and I gave the purchase deed to Baruch the son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, in the presence of Hanamel my uncle's son, and in the presence of the witnesses who signed the purchase deed, before all the Jews who sat in the court of the prison. 13 "Then I charged Baruch before them, saying, 14 'Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: "Take these deeds, both this purchase deed which is sealed and this deed which is open, and put them in an earthen vessel, that they may last many days." 15 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: "Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land." '

Is this it, Shiloh?

[nebula]

I5 Fear not: for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west;

6 I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth;

OK - even if the Jews were scattered throughout the Babylonian Empire - there are still a couple things missing here.

From the east - I don't see any of hte Babylonian Empire extending to the east of Israel. Do you?

From the ends of the earth - Compared to the Medo-Persian Empire, Greek Empire, and Roman Empire, Babylon is not "the ends of the earth". And just to clarify, the Jews were not ignorant of the land areas we now call Europe (Jonah headed for Tarshish on the other end of the Meditteranean Sea, you know).

So, I have a very hard time seeing this as the return from Babylon.

[Guest shiloh357]

To say that Christ will return one day and sit in a Temple in Jerusalem is the same as calling Christ a liar as he himself says he does not sit in temples made by hands.

Acts 17:24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;

Acts 7:48 Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet,

Christ destroyed the need for a physical temple on the cross, now he is the way to salvation. So, wouldn't God causing another man made temple to be built constitute a "house divided against itself?"

Mk 14:58 We heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands.

Paul was contrasting the difference between the omnipotence of the true God vs. the pagan deities. God did not "dwell" per se, in the Temple or Tabernacle in the sense that it was limited to a particular geographical location. God cannot be contained because God is everywhere. The pagan such as the Greeks had no concept of omnipotence. Their "gods" had to have houses to live in just as men did. They could conceive of a deity that did not have some of the same weaknesses or limitations as man. Their gods were supernatural, but not divine.

The Lord told David that there would never lack a descendent on His throne. The throne of David is never spoken of in spiritual terms. It is never connected with Heaven anywhere in Scripture. The New Testament does not say that Jesus is sitting on the throne of David at this time. That is something that many Christians have penciled into their theology, but if pressed to find a passage form the New Testament that explicitly declares that Jesus is sitting on the throne of David and mentions THAT throne specifically, they cannot find it. It simply does not exist. They rely more on conjecture than anything else.

To say that Jesus will sit on the throne of David does not make God a liar, because you are trying to tie two dissimilar issues. You are trying to draw together unrelated passages that do not speak to the same issues.

Jesus sitting on his throne in a Temple does not at all threaten the omnipresence of God, or the fact that He cannot be contained in earthly temples.