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I see how you would believe that. However I don`t think you have taken into account these scriptures.
1. Heb. 11. OT Saints looking for a city. (v. 10 & 16) Then we read in v. 40 -
`God having provided something better for US, that THEY should not be made perfect apart from US.` (Heb.12: 40)
There we see the US and THEY. We, the Body of Christ are given `something better.` In the Greek that means a greater dominion. We are promised to sit with the Lord on His own throne in the highest realm. (Rev. 3: 21) Whereas the OT saints have been promised the city which come DOWN out of heaven FROM GOD.
Big difference in inheritance there.
2. Heb. 12: 22 - 24. The General Assembly in the highest realm.
`You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the General Assembly and church of the first-born who are registered in heaven, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus...`
There we see `the church of the first-born` AND the `spirits` of just men, (& women). Two groups. The church will stay on Mount Zion, the ruling area, while the just men, OT saints will come down out of heaven from God, in the city.
Not so! This is a false dissection, and very troubling. You and Keras seem determined to invent theology no one else teaches and then force it on others. Well, there is a reason why others do not believe this. It is unbiblical. This is what the cults do!
A lot of Christians seem to get confused by what happened with faithful Israel at the time of Christ’s earthly ministry. Did God’s Old Testament spiritual remnant finally disappear when Christ came on the scene? Or, did it continue, but lose its purpose and identity with the first advent? Was remnant Israel replaced by the New Testament Gentile Church? Was it merged into the New Testament Church or was the New Testament believers merged into faithful Israel?
Revelation 12 sheds some lights on these queries. It helps us understand the transition of God’s people from the Old to the New. We, notably, see a figurative woman in this chapter who exists before Christ’s birth and who continues to thrive after His ascension. She is symbolically represented in Revelation 12:1 as “a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.” This passage depicts this woman bringing our Savior into this world. She is described in Revelation 12:5 as birthing “a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.”
Who is the “man child” who “was to rule all nations with a rod of iron,” and “was caught up unto God, and to his throne”? This is Israel’s Messiah Jesus Christ. He is the promised seed. He is the offspring of the woman. He is the Holy One of Israel. He is the ultimate expression of true Israel. The woman therefore must be an Israeli woman. But not an apostate woman, who was previously rejected of God in the Old Testament, but a faithful woman. This woman has to refer to faithful Israel. Anyway, God’s true people are often described in Scripture as a woman. The 12 stars on her crown either represent divine authority or are symbolic of the 12 tribes of Israel. It was from this Israeli woman that Christ was produced.
The detail before us powerfully shows us the continuity and continuation of faithful Israel after the earthly life, death and resurrection of our Lord. Revelation 12:17 confirms that the woman represents those that accept Christ (the Messiah) as Savior and Lord. Despite Satan persecuting the woman (Revelation 12:15-16), those who survive of the woman’s seed are all those that expressly “keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Christ (Israel’s Messiah) is the common bond that joins the household of faith in the Old with the New. Apostate Judaism can never fit this description, with its hostility to Jesus. They therefore have no part in this figurative woman. We are clearly looking at God’s true covenant people – the elect throughout time. This was God’s preserved remnant within national Israel in the Old Testament and are the redeemed Church from throughout the nations in this New Testament era.
After Christ ascended up into heaven, and after Satan was banished from heaven, through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, this elect people, that are represented by this chosen woman, are described as those that “overcame him [the devil] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death” (Revelation 12:11). This woman clearly transcends both covenants. She was manifestly before the incarnation (as she brought forth Christ), but she is also alive and active after the cross (as she is seen advancing the Gospel of Christ). This shows us that the New Testament is the continuation of faithful Israel.
True Israel did not therefore go away. It recognized Israel’s Messiah and embraced Him as Lord. That spiritual company coalesced around John the Baptist. The prophet was called to be the forerunner of Christ. He introduced Him to Israel. His direct preaching separated that which was counterfeit from that which was real. He caused a dividing of the people by only baptizing those Israelis who were willing to “bring forth … fruits meet for repentance.” (Matthew 3:8).
After the cross, the congregation (or Church or ekklesia) of faithful old covenant Israel became the new covenant congregation (or Church or ekklesia). While overlapping two different eras, it was the exact same developing spiritual organism containing the exact same elect remnant, and more. The new spiritual community grew into a larger broader global entity.
Let us then have no doubt, the remnant of Israel continued. What is more, God remained faithful to His covenantal obligations to Israel during the transition from the old covenant to the new covenant through His preservation of an elect remnant within that overall nation. This was true believing Israel. This was God’s chosen people. God was as bound to them as He was any previous generation of believing Israel. When Jesus sent the 12 disciples out in Matthew 10:5-6, He declared: “Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Here we are confronted in the New Testament with the Hebraic shepherd/sheep symbolism. The same familiar imagery carries over from the Old to the New. This reinforces the continuity of thought, faith, people and purpose. While the Messiah came to usher in a new economy, nothing changed in regard to the intimacy God shares with His true people. Our Lord’s earthly mission was initially and primarily, but not exclusively, concentrated upon the lost sheep of the house of Israel. His attention and principal mission was to firstly evangelize them before reaching out to the Gentiles. God in His infinite wisdom chose to work through one lone nation before the cross. That was His divine will. We see that in His earthly mission (which was still under the old covenant). Nevertheless, that focus was broadened out after His death to embrace all nations.
As in the Old Testament, there was the sporadic Gentile conversion before the cross. But they were the exception rather than the rule. When a Gentile “woman of Canaan” approached Him in Matthew 15:22-28, He explained: “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (v24). Not taking no for an answer, she continued to implore Him for mercy. Finally, in verse 28, Jesus said to the woman, “O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.”
While Dispensationalists are fixated with all things biologically Jewish, they seem blind to the fact that the infant New Testament Church was indeed faithful Israel. Christ’s early followers consisted of the elect remnant of Israel. This was the enlightened congregation of Jewish believers from among wider national Israel. They were the Israeli community who believed that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah.
This company contained people like Mary and Joseph, John the Baptist and his parents Zechariah and Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna who were waiting faithfully in the temple for Jesus, and early disciples like Peter, James and John. Many Jews recognized Jesus as the Messiah and embraced Him during His earthly ministry. In fact, they came to Him in great multitudes. Both Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, who were both believed to be members of the ruling body of the Jews – the Sanhedrin, trusted in Him. Faithful Israel also included that Hebrew of the Hebrews the apostle Paul. The fledgling early Church overwhelmingly consisted of true believing Israelites. This was the ongoing righteous remnant of Israel. Those Jews who rejected Jesus were apostate Israel. They preferred to remain in their sins and go to a lost eternity.
The 12 apostles were Jewish. The New Testament writers were Jewish. The 70 disciples that were sent out to evangelize Israel were likewise. The true Israel of the Old Testament became the nucleus of the new covenant congregation. That small faithful band of Israelis that existed after the death, burial and resurrection of Christ became the New Testament Church, and became later known as Christians (Acts 11:26). It was that faithful number who Jesus used to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19).
The 120, who met on the Jewish festival of Pentecost, were of solid Israeli stock. When Peter preached on the day of Pentecost after the Holy Spirit had fell, his audience was devout Jews “out of every nation under heaven” who had gathered in Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost. That is why he addressed them as “Ye men of Israel” (Acts 2:5). Personally, three thousand of them experience salvation. Not long after that, God saved five thousand Jews in Jerusalem (Acts 4:4). Following that, there was “multitudes both of men and women” who “were the more added to the Lord” in Acts 5:14. There was a mighty ingathering of Jews in the early New Testament Church.
There is no doubt that the Jews were the main focus of Christ’s earthly ministry. That situation continued on for a while throughout the book of Acts. But redemption didn’t stop there. His sheep were not limited to the house of Israel. His heart for Israel did not in any way diminish His intention to reach the Gentile nations with salvation. Jesus said prior to the cross, speaking to His Jewish converts, in John 10:14-16, “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.”
The continuation of the believing Israeli flock, and its morphing into the New Testament congregation, confirmed the expansion of faithful Israel in the new covenant period. It also explains the Israeli identify of the new covenant people of God and demonstrates the sense of continuity that existed between both covenant eras. Gentiles were now to be corralled into faithful Israel in extraordinary numbers. They trusted in Israel’s Messiah, they joined the old covenant flock, and became the New Testament people of God. This was a radical overhaul for even the most open-minded of Christ’s disciples. We saw that in their parochial response to Christ’s kingdom teaching in Acts 1:6 and with their struggle in the book of Acts to come to terms with accommodating Gentiles joining the congregation (ekklesia) on an equal basis to that of Jews.
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