Who is the church?

DrBubbaLove

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In grafting something has to exist to graft to, and chronologically Israel also came first. As far as the ultimate fulfillment of the promise to Abraham that comes through the graft. Does that help?

Gotta add that I doubt that is where this is going

From my view the Church is what He established and remains as establishing His Kingdom on earth and to which all Christians are a part.
 
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Job8

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Are we grafted into Israel? Or is Israel grafted into the church? Or are they separate people with separate promises? Who's promises are who's?
The Church is redeemed Jews and Gentiles in one Body until the Rapture. But there are promises to Israel under the Abrahamic Covenant which do not apply to the Church, and will be fulfilled after the Second Coming of Christ.

Believing Gentiles are "grafted" into believing Israel, but the Church was kept hidden from Israel until revealed to Paul as an entity where there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile. The best way to distinguish between the Church and Israel is to note the the Church will remain in the New Jerusalem whereas Israel will have Jerusalem on earth as a redeemed and restored city of God.

The Kingdom of God includes both the Church and Israel, as well as all the nations which are saved and established on earth. Furthermore, it will include
the universe.
 
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Wgw

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In grafting something has to exist to graft to, and chronologically Israel also came first. As far as the ultimate fulfillment of the promise to Abraham that comes through the graft. Does that help?

Gotta add that I doubt that is where this is going

From my view the Church is what He established and remains as establishing His Kingdom on earth and to which all Christians are a part.

I heartily agree with this sentiment, although I suspect we might well argue at length over which bishop or bishops should preside over the Church, and the nature of this presidency, were we not so busy jointly confronting the rampant heresy on this forum!
 
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Soyeong

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Would you say a Christian must observe the Law of Moses? The ceremonial and dietary portions especially?

1 Peter 2:9-10 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

1 Peter 1:14-16 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Leviticus 11:45-46 For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground. 45 For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.”

Those who part of God's chosen people should follow the laws that God has given to His chosen people. Those who are part of a royal priesthood and a holy nation should follow God's instructions for how to have a holy conduct. Verse 16 quotes from Leviticus, where it talks about dietary laws, which is part of God's instructions to His people for how to have a righteous and holy conduct. We are not to have a righteous and holy conduct in order to be declared righteous and holy, but rather we are to have such a conduct because we have been declared righteous and holy by faith, and that is the conduct that those who are righteous and holy are called to have, as we follow Jesus' example by walking as he walked and becoming more like him through the leading of the Spirit.
 
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Soyeong

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So a Christian should observe the law. But we shouldn't literally observe it as it is written. So how could you know if you are truly observe the "right" interpretation of the law?

If you live in California and you move to Nevada, then California State laws no longer apply to you. Similarly, studying God's law to determine how it applies to us today does not mean that we are disregarding how it is written. There's little doubt in my mind that I don't have a 100% accurate interpretation of the Bible, but this is also something that we should pray about and trust God to lead in by His Spirit.

Ezekiel 36:26-27 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
 
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Soyeong

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I agree that we should trust God to lead us into truth. I am hesitant about Hebrew roots theology however.

If we should trust God to lead us into truth, then we should trust God to lead us into obedience to His law because His law is truth:

Psalms 119:142 Your righteousness is eternal righteousness, and your Torah is truth.

I don't hold to Hebrew roots. I grew up going to a Baptist church for 30 years and it is only in the past few years that I started digging into understanding the Jewish cultural context of the Bible. I was pretty resistant to my present understanding of the law, so I don't blame you for being hesitant, but I was eventually compelled to conclude that I had it wrong. There's just such a big disconnect between how Jews saw the law as being a delight and divine privilege (See the rest of Psalms 119 or Romans 7:22) and Christians who see it as a heavy burden, and I came to the conclusion that Paul really did mean it when he said that our faith upholds the law (Romans 3:31). But you probably should be cautious, so be a good Berean and test everything. However, the Bereans checked everything Paul said against OT Scripture, so if you interpret Paul as being against keeping the law, then you understand him differently than the people who walked and talked with him. I'm heading to bed, so I'll catch you tomorrow.
 
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Gregory Thompson

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Are we grafted into Israel? Or is Israel grafted into the church? Or are they separate people with separate promises? Who's promises are who's?

The gentiles were grafted into Israel at the time of the apostles because the apostles were inseparable from Israel and the Jews, but what "Israel" was, takes another form now. This is what is meant by "the promise" . The promise took the form of a physical seed bringing forth a great nation that fell. And the promise gave dominion to David's seed the everlasting king, Jesus Christ.

So in a way, I AM CHURCH, and so is everyone else in the body under Christ Jesus' headship.

In revelation, the bride is revealed as a city descending from Heaven, this is what the Israel of God became.

the Israel of God was a type and shadow of what Church is becoming, for as Paul writes .. we know not what we are .. but when we see Him we will become just like him.
 
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DrBubbaLove

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Jesus said if we followed two laws, that essentially everything else given by the prophets are held by those two. The freedom from strict following of The Law was not something His Disciples were apparently famous for as the lack of drew criticism from Jewish leadership more than one occasion. A strict following of The Law also did not seem something He thought those that were "with Him", who we have reason to believe were all Jews (at least the men), needed to concern themselves with. Combined His statements with those of His Apostles concerning whether Christians should follow The Law, I do not see support for anything more than saying if you feel led to, and I think today that only a person raised as an orthodox Jew who had converted to Christianity might, then do so.

So no, most Christians don't follow The Law and never feel led to and do not have to feel bad about that.
 
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Hillsage

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The gentiles were grafted into Israel at the time of the apostles because the apostles were inseparable from Israel and the Jews, but what "Israel" was, takes another form now. This is what is meant by "the promise" . The promise took the form of a physical seed bringing forth a great nation that fell. And the promise gave dominion to David's seed the everlasting king, Jesus Christ.
Do we ever really think about all those who lived before Jacob even became Israel? Did they just happen to 'miss' the plan of God? I think not. And what happens to all Israel which was "broken off" because of 'unbelief' while we're being "grafted in" because 'of belief'? I think we lack too much understanding of temporal things, let alone grasp the true eternal plan of God which will take "ages to come" to reach fulfillment.

So in a way, I AM CHURCH, and so is everyone else in the body under Christ Jesus' headship.
I've been saying "I am the church" for several years now, but I think what you just said...says it better. I do say "think", because I'm still not totally sure. :oldthumbsup: I just know that many times when I tell people "I am the church" they seem to think that I'm excluding anyone else which is simply not the case. But such is the thinking of carnal minded "Christians".
 
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Soyeong

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Jesus said if we followed two laws, that essentially everything else given by the prophets are held by those two. The freedom from strict following of The Law was not something His Disciples were apparently famous for as the lack of drew criticism from Jewish leadership more than one occasion. A strict following of The Law also did not seem something He thought those that were "with Him", who we have reason to believe were all Jews (at least the men), needed to concern themselves with. Combined His statements with those of His Apostles concerning whether Christians should follow The Law, I do not see support for anything more than saying if you feel led to, and I think today that only a person raised as an orthodox Jew who had converted to Christianity might, then do so.

So no, most Christians don't follow The Law and never feel led to and do not have to feel bad about that.

It was a common question to ask a rabbi what they thought was the most important law because it was a quick way to understand their yoke and to get at understanding what the essence of the law is. A rabbi's yoke was the way that they taught how to follow the law. By saying that the law was about loving God and your neighbor and that the rest of the laws hang on those two, Jesus was not diminishing the importance of the other laws and saying that you only need to focus on those two, but rather he was saying that the other laws are about loving God and you neighbor and are examples that paint us a picture of what that looks like. The command to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind is a lot easier said than done, so Jesus came to teach us how to correctly follow the law both by word and by living a perfect example for us to follow. A similar instance of this is found in Jewish literature:

One of famous account in the Talmud (Shabbat 31a) tells about a gentile who wanted to convert to Judaism. This happened not infrequently, and this individual stated that he would accept Judaism only if a rabbi would teach him the entire Torah while he, the prospective convert, stood on one foot. First he went to Shammai, who, insulted by this ridiculous request, threw him out of the house. The man did not give up and went to Hillel. This gentle sage accepted the challenge, and said:

"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation of this--go and study it!"

The goal of a disciple was to learn how think and act like their rabbi or to essentially become an imitation of them, so Jesus' disciples learned how to keep the law from him just by doing what he did, and we are also to walk in the same way he walked (1 John 2:6) and to follow his example (1 Peter 2:21) as we become more like Christ through the leading of the Spirit.

Jesus criticized the Pharisees for not keeping the law by setting it aside to follow their own traditions (Mark 7:6-13), so the contrast between Jesus' yoke and the yoke of the Pharisees was not about whether God should be obeyed, but about the way in which His law should be obeyed. The law was always meant to be kept faith (Habakkuk 2:4), to be a delight (Psalms 1:2, Psalms 119, Romans 7:12), and to bring rest for our souls (Jeremiah 6:16-19), but the Pharisees had perverted it into legalism and made it into a heavy burden with all of their traditions (Matthew 23:4). The Apostles were all Torah observant, as was every Christian for at least around the first ten years after Christ's ascension up until Peter's vision, so they drew criticism from Jewish leadership not for disobeying God's law, but for not following their traditions.
 
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