Are Israel and the Church Distinct?

If the people who were taken into the Church at Pentecost are the new Israel, then who are these guys in the nation state by the same name?

Zionism

Forgive me...

Tree of Life said:

In some places in Scripture there is an obvious distinction between the two. But in other places there appears to be a profound continuity between Israel and the Church.

In what way is OT/NT Israel distinct from the NT church?

In what way is OT/NT Israel to be identified with the church?

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The nation of Israel has specific biblical prophecies stated in the OT. The most repeated is a time would come when God would return them to their biblical homeland. Many use the term all Christians are spiritual Israel.

Christian Church and today's state of Israel are in no way connected

Tree of Life said:

In some places in Scripture there is an obvious distinction between the two. But in other places there appears to be a profound continuity between Israel and the Church.

In what way is OT/NT Israel distinct from the NT church?

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The resurrection, the Trinity, heaven and hell, and the Christian rejection of circumcision and Levitical Law being required for sanctification.

In what way is OT/NT Israel to be identified with the church?

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The promises and covenants were not set aside with the inclusion of the Gentiles, we were grafted in like wild branches grafted into a domesticated vine. We love and worship the same God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Honestly, I think Israel is the Church. We were once gentiles, now part of the commonwealth of Israel through faith in Christ, so if you are part of the Covenant, you are part of Israel.

Jeremiah 31:31-34
A New Covenant
31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”



Ephesians 2:11-13
Brought Near by His Blood
11 Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands— 12 that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.


So the big question to ask is, How could we not be Israel, if we are now citizens of Israel?

Only those who are the seed of abraham by faith are the chosen of God....
The seed of abraham is Christ
Galations3:7-9,26

Tree of Life said:

In some places in Scripture there is an obvious distinction between the two. But in other places there appears to be a profound continuity between Israel and the Church.

In what way is OT/NT Israel distinct from the NT church?

In what way is OT/NT Israel to be identified with the church?

Click to expand...

The word "ekklesia" is translated as "assembly" or "church" and is used in the Septuagint to refer to the church of Israel in the wilderness, so that is when the Church Age began, and the church has always been made up by the people of God. When translators inconsistently translate "ekklesia" as "church" when it specifically refers to a group of NT believers, but translate it as "assembly" everywhere else, they create the false impression that it is talking about something brand new rather than something restored according to prophecy (Amos 9:11, Acts 15:16).

Tree of Life said:

Ok.

What are your thoughts on the questions in the OP?

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I'm not quite awake~OT & NT ???? what them is?

seth

sethrak said:

I'm not quite awake~OT & NT ???? what them is?

seth

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Old Testament and New Testament (both common abbreviations)

in time they are different symbols. in spirit they are the same reality.

Christianity is Spiritual Israel- contending with that is contending with the whole of historical Christian orthodoxy.
Stop trying to make Christianity second to heretics.

Tree of Life said:

In some places in Scripture there is an obvious distinction between the two. But in other places there appears to be a profound continuity between Israel and the Church.

In what way is OT/NT Israel distinct from the NT church?

In what way is OT/NT Israel to be identified with the church?

Click to expand...

The church is spiritual Israel (Galatians 6:16) and Christians are spiritual Jews (Romans 2:28-29). Fleshly Israel, fleshy Jews had been cast off from being God's chosen (Romans 11). Therefore if the fleshly Jews are to be saved they must become a spiritual Jew and be of spiritual Israel.

In Romans 9 in Paul's argument against the fleshly Jews in God casting them off, Paul said "Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel:" There are 2 different Israels Paul is talking about in this verse. God had promised fleshly salvation yet in Romans 11 God cast them off. Therefore the Jew's argument is God did not keep His promise to the fleshly Jew. Paul argues that the word of God did not fail, did not come to nought. God did promise fleshly Jews salvation but that salvation would come through Christ and His church which the fleshly Jews rejected. So God kept His promise in sending Christ to set up the church, but the Jews rejection of Christ and the church is not God's fault nor does it constitute a failure of God keeping His word to the Jews. When Paul says " For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel" is Paul's way of showing that not all of fleshly Israel is of spiritual Israel (the church) where salvation is found. So God did keep His word to fleshly Jews but they did not have a faithful obedience to God as seen by their rejection of Christ and His church (spiritual Israel), hence the fleshly Jews were cut off.

The false man made teaching of Premillennialism would object to this, but if Premillennialism were true, then Paul's against the Jews fails. As one commentator puts it..."what Paul did NOT say to these Jews: "The answer to your problem will be given a few thousand years from now when God will bring the bulk of a whole generation of Jews to faith and consequently to salvation (there are those who insist that Paul proves God"s faithfulness in Chapter 11 by speaking of the coming glorious conversion of a very large number of unbelieving Jews). That would have been no answer at all. He had a present problem; one right in front of him. What about those unblessed Jews in Paul"s day (and before?) Did the Word of God come to nought in respect to them? Never! Shall we say the promises were not addressed to them? We can"t do that (; Acts 3:25-26; Acts 13:32). We must insist with Paul that the real heirs are faithful physical Jews." The same is true with the rest of the world. God offers salvation to all men (1 John 2:1-2; 1 Timothy 4:10; Mark 16:15). But only those who manifest "faith" actually inherit the blessing. (Galatians 3:26-28)

So God keep His word to the Jews by sending Christ and setting up the church back in the first century. Again, the Jews rejection of that promise of salvation by rejecting Christ and His church does not constitute a failure of God's word.

If God did not set up the church in the first century as Premillennialism may claim, and there still is no church today 2000 years later, then the Jews had a valid argument against God in God not keeping His word.
Point to note:
Since God did cast off fleshly Jews (Rom 11) and if the church was not set up back at that time then those Jews at Paul's time that God cast off (and Jews that have lived over the last 2000 years) would NOT have found salvation in the church as God promised. Those Jews contemporary with Paul along with all the Jews that lived and died over the last 2000 years would all be lost WITHOUT HOPE without the church thereby God did NOT keep His word to the Jews.

Yet we know God did keep His word in sending those Jews the Messiah Who set up His church through which they could be saved (For the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable- Rom 11:29) that even though God cast fleshly Israel off (Romans 11:11-22), yet God did not make salvation impossible for the Jews but left the door of salvation ajar for them to find that salvation through Christ and His church even though the Jews were and still do reject Christ and His church.

OrthodoxyUSA said:

If the people who were taken into the Church at Pentecost are the new Israel, then who are these guys in the nation state by the same name?

Zionism

Forgive me...

Click to expand...

The Khazars, converted to Judaism i,n name, some 700 years after the Birth of Christ.
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No one today practices the Faith of The Hebrew today.
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The Faith of the Hebrew being Fulfilled, is present in the Universal Church~The Christian Church.
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The Holy Land as we know it was Christian until overrun by the Muslim
When the Christian Church again is back in the Holy Land that will be the days~
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The Christian Church and People are in reference Israel~ not the Khazar who now are the in control of that land. Calling a state Israel is just a word~



The Ancient Hebrew Faith is practiced nowhere but in Christian Churches which celebrates it's fulfillment.

sethrak said:

Christian Church and today's state of Israel are in no way connected

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And today's state of Israel has very little, other than location, to do with Biblical Israel.

The OT prophets spoke in unison, with one voice as it were. A time would come when God would return the nation of Israel/ physical Jews to their biblical homeland. Huge swathes of OT scripture refer to this.
In 1948 Israel became a nation again in its biblical homeland.
Sadly, so many cannot relate this to what an abundance of scripture plainly states, they just view it from a view driven by their academic minds.
Tis tragic

It's a bit like, so many OT prophecies being fulfilled when Christ walked this earth, yet the majority refused to see it

Yes, but keep reading and thinking and it may become clearer in time~unless you can only see it from one angle. Good luck to you.

Yes, I've noticed refusal~let's keep looking.