Who is "National Israel"?

Guojing said:

That might be true in your world, but I was referring to those whom God made a covenant of circumcision with (genesis 17)

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jgr said:

That included both Jews and Gentiles. (Genesis 17:12)

Today, globally, 30% of males are circumsized.

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Guojing said:

I seriously doubt it will include the Muslims.

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Guojing said:

I seriously doubt it will include the Muslims.

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Guojing said:

I already said unless the context clearly split them up.

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BABerean2 said:

If the two houses have not being joined together under the New Covenant fulfilled at Calvary, the author of the Book of Hebrews was very confused in Hebrews 8:6-13, and Hebrews 10:16-18, and Hebrews 12:22-24.

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Guojing said:

Yes, right now, the nation Israel is an enemy to God and the gospel (Romans 11:28) but it’s not permanent, due to Abraham’s status with God.

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jgr said:

You've said that the covenant was circumcision. That would include all circumcised males irrespective of who they are.

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keras said:

The people of the Jewish State of Israel, are not said to repent, they will be removed; Jeremiah 12:14

Jeremiah chapter 13:1-10 Jeremiah is instructed to buy a loincloth. He is then told to hide it near a river. After a long time, he retrieved it, but it was ruined.
Jeremiah 13:11-27 Thus, I shall ruin the enormous pride of Judah, these people with stubborn hearts, who worship other gods – they will become like that cloth, no good for anything. Hosea 8:14, Jeremiah 8:5-12

......I bound all Israel and all Judah to Me, so that they should become a source of renown and praise to Me, but they did not listen. Isaiah 31:6-7
....I shall make all who live in Jerusalem drunk..... I shall show no compassion nor refrain from destroying them. Obadiah 12-16

Pay heed, be not too proud to listen, for it is the Lord who speaks.
Give glory to God, before the light that you look for turns to darkness.

If in the depths you will not listen, then weep bitterly for the Lords people are carried off into captivity. [Judah conquered by Babylon and again in AD70] Ezekiel 21:14

Say to the King and the Queen mother; take a humble seat, for your crowns have fallen. Ezekiel 21:25-27

The towns in the Negev are besieged, no one can relieve them. Judah has been swept clean away. This is paralleled by Ezekiel 20:46-47, Isaiah 9:18-19, Jeremiah 10:18

Look up and see! Those people who are coming from the North.
The Lord’s people, all true Christians, migrating to the Land. Isaiah 41:8-10

Where is the flock that you were so proud of?
God’s people scattered among the nations.

What will you say when your leaders are missing? When you wonder why this has happened? It is because of your many sins. Isaiah 3:1-3

Can a Nubian change his skin? No more can you, [Judah] do good, so accustomed are you to doing evil. Isaiah 38-9

I will scatter you like chaff, before the desert wind. Jeremiah 33:14

This is your lot – I have decreed this for you, because you have forgotten Me and trusted in false gods. I will bare your shame for all to see. Isaiah 3:16-26

For your adulteries and shameful deeds – woe to you Jerusalem. How much longer will you be unclean? Nahum 1:12-15


This is a clear prophecy about the judgement of Judah in ancient times and again, soon to happen, proved by the unfulfilled prophesies here and throughout the Bible.

Then, the Lord’s faithful Christian people will enter the Land from the North. Isaiah 49:12 They will live there, in peace and security, to prepare for the Return of Jesus.

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Guojing said:

Don’t you know one can be circumcised for reasons other than for genesis 17?

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jgr said:

The fulfilled old covenant was not circumcision of the flesh.

The fulfilled old covenant was faith and obedience.

The evidence of the fulfilled old covenant was circumcision of the flesh.

The fulfilled New Covenant is not circumcision of the flesh.

The fulfilled New Covenant is faith and obedience.

The evidence of the fulfilled New Covenant is circumcision of the heart.

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jgr said:

The fulfilled old covenant was not circumcision of the flesh.

The fulfilled old covenant was faith and obedience.

The evidence of the fulfilled old covenant was circumcision of the flesh.

The fulfilled New Covenant is not circumcision of the flesh.

The fulfilled New Covenant is faith and obedience.

The evidence of the fulfilled New Covenant is circumcision of the heart.

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sovereigngrace said:

God warns Israel in Leviticus 26:41-42: “And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity: Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.”

Physical circumcision was intended to be a symbolic outward sign of inward spiritual circumcision of the heart under the old covenant. Notwithstanding, for someone to be considered a true covenant child in God’s eyes, in the old economy, the human heart had to be changed.

A circumcised heart in the Old Testament indicated that one was a true child of God. An uncircumcised heart in the Old Testament denoted one was a child of the devil.

John D. Meade expounds: “the uncircumcised heart in Leviticus appears in the context of the Holiness Code, which is emphasizing a demand for an inward holiness out of an already outwardly consecrated relationship to Yahweh … They were holy outwardly according to ritual … but they were in need of inward holiness – heart circumcision” (Circumcision of the Heart in Leviticus and Deuteronomy: Divine Means for Resolving Curse and Bringing Blessing).

Stephen used a similar term in Acts 7 to rebuke the hard-hearted Christ-rejecting Israelites: “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye” (Acts 7:51). This title clearly refers to the unregenerate in both economies

Evidently, these orthodox Jews would have been physically circumcised as infants. But this meant little without a new birth experience. It did not constitute favor with God or did it carry any spiritual merit. Only a renewed heart signified that one was a chosen child of God. The ‘uncircumcised hearts’ spoken about in these passages equates to “the heart of stone” mentioned in both Ezekiel 11:19 and Ezekiel 36:26. Dr. Andrew Fountain explains: “The uncircumcised heart is a heart of stone which does not want to obey God, or believe His promises” (How Old Testament saints were saved).

Moses exhorted the congregation of Israel in Deuteronomy 10:16 to “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.” He instructed in Deuteronomy 30:6: “the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.”

Here, the result of spiritual circumcision is a spiritual change that results in one suitably loving God for who He is. What is more, the result of this ‘circumcision of the heart’ produces a spiritual life. This reinforces the idea of a complete regenerative change of constitution that accompanied circumcision of the heart in the Old Testament saints, that enabled them to give God His due.

This begs an important question for our Dispensationalist friends: how possibly could the human heart be circumcised without the indwelling aid and work of the Spirit of God? Who else could change a hardened sinful heart that is hostile to God to a softened heart that wants to please God? Who could deny we are looking at regeneration?

John D. Meade comments: “In Deuteronomy 10:12-22 Moses exhorts the people to maintain covenant loyalty by balancing exhortations with statements about the character of Yahweh … The statements about Yahweh’s character become the grounds for the earnest pleas to be devoted to Yahweh, their God, and it is the theme of loyal devotion, which prompts the origination of the reference to heart circumcision.”

The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah relays the same truth to natural Israel, in Jeremiah 4:4, commanding: “Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.” The prophet’s audience here was clearly physically circumcised Jews, but that was manifestly not enough. They needed to be spiritually circumcised to be authentically viewed as God’s people. While Jeremiah’s warning largely fell upon deaf ears, he nevertheless sounded the warning. The prophet later lamented over Israel’s rebellious state in Jeremiah 9:26: “all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.”

While many gave lip service to Yahweh God, and the Hebrew men carried the outward sign of covenant, they were unregenerate in heart. They were unsaved. RC Sproul submits: “Circumcision, as the mark of the old covenant, never guaranteed that the Israelites would rejoice by faith in God’s special ownership of them, but the sign pointed to their need for their hearts to be set apart to love Him (Deut. 10:12–22).”

Circumcising the flesh in the Old Testament never saved any man. Circumcising the heart represented a spiritual transformation. It involved the regenerative power of the Spirit. Regeneration resurrects man’s spirit from spiritual death to spiritual life. It gave man a new heart. Eugene Merrill: “circumcision of the heart … speaks of internal identification with [the Lord] in what might be called regeneration in Christian theology” (The New American Commentary).

Ligonier Ministries has an article (Circumcision of the Heart) on its website that asserts: “In Jeremiah 4:1–4, the prophet reminds the people that they cannot rightfully trust in the mark of circumcision for covenant blessings; rather, they have to experience the inner reality of a circumcised heart that the circumcision in their flesh is to signify. The Lord’s covenant of salvation has always been a covenant of the heart.”

The prophet Ezekiel rebukes the rebellion of Israel in Ezekiel 18. He commands them to turn from their sin and receive a new heart and spirit. Ezekiel 18:30-32 records: “Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.”

When you see a demand for a change of heart you see the necessity of the Spirit to achieve such. It is impossible for man to change himself. It is God the Holy Spirit that creates the desires and it is Him that gives the power to perform such. The Old Testament saints required the same aid as the New Testament saints. They were no stronger or no better equipped to overcome their flesh than us today. As John de Hoog put it: “If there were no indwelling, transforming work in the OT, then the heroes of the faith are no less than superhuman individuals who have an amazing power to believe and obey apart from the Spirit’s work, a power that is not available to us” (The Holy Spirit’s Work in the Old Testament).

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Guojing said:

As I said, romans 11 has the latest prophecy regarding the nation Israel

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keras said:

You still have the wrong belief of a general Jewish redemption.
Many prophesies tell of their virtual demise and only a remnant of Christian Jews will survive.

Jeremiah 6:8-9 Be instructed, Jerusalem [Judah], or your God will depart from you and will devastate the Land. Psalms 89:30-32, Matthew 21:43
The Lord says: Glean like a vine the remnant of Israel, one last time, like the vine dresser – pass your hand over the branches. Isaiah 5:5-7


Jeremiah 6:10-15 To whom shall I speak and give warning? Who will hear me? Their ears are blocked, they are incapable of listening. They treat the Lord’s Word as a reproach, it has no appeal for them. Ezekiel 14:2, Ezekiel 22:26-28

But I am full of the anger of the Lord, I cannot hold it back. Isaiah 63:1-6 I must pour it out onto all the people of the Land. Their houses will be given to others.

For all the leaders and people only consider themselves, their prophets and Rabbis are all frauds, every one of them. They fail to address the real problems of their people. They say: “All is well”. All well? Nothing is right and just. They ought to be ashamed because of their sinful practices, yet they have no sense of shame, therefore they will fall with a great crash and be brought low on the Day of My reckoning. Ezekiel 33:25-26


Jeremiah 6:16-20-30 The Lord says: you should enquire about the Way that leads to righteousness. But they said: “We refuse”. Then I appointed watchmen – listen for the call they told them. But they said: “We refuse”. Therefore hear you nations and take note of the plight of these people. I am about to bring ruin upon them, for all their sinful ways and ignoring My instructions. Your sacrifices are not acceptable and your offerings do not please Me. Zephaniah1:4-6 Matthew 24:41-42

Therefore the Lord says: I will set obstacles before this people, which will bring them to the ground, father, sons, friends and neighbours will all perish together. Jeremiah 12:14-17 A great host appears, like men arrayed for battle, against you: Zion.
Joel 2:1-11, Revelation 6:12-17, Isaiah 2:12-21

News of their coming has reached us and our hands hang limp, agony grips us, pangs as of a woman in labour. Do not go outside, for the foe will smite you there, as terror is spread around the world. Mourn and wail as the despoiler comes upon us in an instant.
These verses are the clearest description of how the Lord will act on His great Day of vengeance. Isaiah 63:1-6 A coronal mass ejection flash will ‘come in an instant’, but ‘news of its coming will reach us’, by the STEREO satellite system. ‘Do not go outside’, is obvious – get into underground shelters and stay there until it passes, at least 24hrs. Psalms 18:7-15, Isaiah 30:26

It is appointed to assay My people, testing their conduct, but they are all rebels, mischief makers and corrupt to a man. The bellows blow, the fire is ready. All types of metal in vain the refiner refines, but the impurities cannot be removed.

Call them reject silver, for the Lord has rejected them. Ref: REB.

Only a remnant of the people of the Jewish State of Israel will survive. Romans 9:27

All of this prophecy in Jeremiah is telling us about the coming fire judgement – the Lord’s Day of vengeance and wrath. This will affect all the world, but especially the Middle East and this prophesy applies specifically to Judah, the current inhabitants of the Land. Amos 2:4-5, Ezekiel 20:46-48, Ezekiel 21:1-17, Isaiah 6:11-14

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Guojing said:

Is there a reason you prefer to look at the prophecies in the ot, but not what Christ revealed to Paul in Romans 11?

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keras said:

I fully consider all of the Bible.
What Paul said in Romans 11:26 was that all the Israelites of God will be saved. From Zion HAS come the Deliverer; Jesus.
Those who believe in Him and accept His Atoning sacrifice, are the Overcomers for God; literally His Israelite people.

The mixed race peoples who comprise the State of Israel, the Israelis, are not Gods Israelites. Israelis face Judgment and punishment, as Paul says; only a remnant of them will be saved.
But the Overcomers, as seen in each of the seven Church's, will be protected and will go to live in all of the holy Land. John sees them there in Revelation 7:9

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Guojing said:

Under the gospel of the Kingdom, Israel do not need to believe 1 Cor 15:1-4, his "atoning sacrifice" for their sins.

They needed to believe that Jesus is their promised Messiah, which is John 20:30-31, and also preached by Peter in Acts 2:36.

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sovereigngrace said:

Not sure where you are getting this. There is one God, one people of God, one type of salvation, one faith, one hope and one Shepherd. There is only one Gospel throughout time that has gradually developed through clearer revelation. All the truth we find in the New Testament can normally be found in the Old Testament, albeit sometimes veiled. This does not in any way suggest 2 Gospels. There is only one Gospel, one overall covenant of grace, one salvation, and one people. This Gospel points to Jesus Christ and His final atoning for our sin. Whilst that disclosure has got brighter and brighter as the revelation of God has unfolded, it has been with man from the Garden. All the teaching in the Old Testament, and every God-ordained typological religious ritual there, was pointing to the Savior and foreshadowing His death, burial and resurrection. This is basic Christianity 101.

Christ was the only hope of the Old Testament saints. Christ is the only hope of the New Testament saints. The people of God have always been one, albeit, before the cross they were overwhelmingly Hebrew. However, there were many Gentile believers in the Old Testament. They were stamped as we were, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

The Bible only recognizes one elect spiritual people throughout time who belong to Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Old Testament and also equally the God of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John in the New Testament. The Old and New Testament saints are joined together through Israel’s Messiah and Redeemer Jesus Christ. In Him, and through faith, they become Abraham's spiritual seed, citizens of true believing Israel, and heirs according to the promise.

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Guojing said:

The 12 were not preaching Jesus's death burial and resurrection during the 4 gospels.

They were preaching the gospel of the kingdom, the content can be summarized in Matthew 10:7.

That will be the very same gospel of the kingdom that will be preached to Israel during the Tribulation (Matthew 24:14).

Israel will need to acknowledge Jesus as their Messiah and Son of God for the end to come, not that he died for their sins and rose again for their justification, even though the latter is still true.

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