Exodus 20 explained?

[Dave-W]

John calls those who call themselves Jews and are not, the synagogue of Satan. And elsewhere Antichrists... Sounds like the devil lost and Jesus will be here in person on the last day.

You are taking certain people and spreading it to everyone who is a Jew. That is both unfair and unscriptural.

 

[Dave L]

You are taking certain people and spreading it to everyone who is a Jew. That is both unfair and unscriptural.

No, I'm saying what John said:

“I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.” (Revelation 2:9)

“Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.” (Revelation 3:9)

“Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.” (1 John 2:22)

“And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.” (1 John 4:3)

 

[Dave L]

Read the text again:

Rom 11:17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree,​

Broken off, not cut. But of the gentiles:

Rom 11:24 For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?​

Gentiles are CUT off. The difference is a cut branch can be grafted in anywhere. A broken branch can ONLY be grafted in to the exact spot it was broken from. That means that Jews remain Israel if they are grafted back in or not.

Broken off = ἐκκλάω fut. 3 sg. ἐκκλάσει Lev 1:17; 1 aor. pass. ἐξεκλάσθην (since Pla., Rep. 10. 611d; Paus. 8, 40, 2) to separate someth. from someth. with force, break off (PTebt 802, 12 and19 [135 B.C.]) of branches Ro 11:17, 19,

Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., Bauer, W., & Gingrich, F. W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., p. 303). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

 

[Karola]

Speaking of the end time when the Lord comes back:

Zechariah 12:10
“I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.​

National repentance and acceptance of Yeshua/Jesus as Messiah and Redeemer.

The following can only refer to Jews can't it:

Again the word of the Lord came to me: 17 ‘Son of man, when the people of Israel were living in their own land, they defiled it by their conduct and their actions. Their conduct was like a woman’s monthly uncleanness in my sight. 18 So I poured out my wrath on them because they had shed blood in the land and because they had defiled it with their idols. 19 I dispersed them among the nations, and they were scattered through the countries; I judged them according to their conduct and their actions. 20 And wherever they went among the nations they profaned my holy name, for it was said of them, “These are the Lord’s people, and yet they had to leave his land.” 21 I had concern for my holy name, which the people of Israel profaned among the nations where they had gone.

22 ‘Therefore say to the Israelites, “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: it is not for your sake, people of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. 23 I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I am proved holy through you before their eyes.

24 ‘“For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28 Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God
Ezekiel 36:27&28

 

[Charity Chewe]

Guys, can you all help shed some light on this please?

You shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness which is in the heavens above, which is on the earth below, or which is in the water beneath the earth.

Is that referring to statutes like that of Jesus, Saints e.t.c?

 

[Adam Raffell]

It's interesting how a debate about Israel has appeared in relation to a question about images. It could be a separate debate, but I think there really is an important link to be made.

When the Word becomes flesh, the eternal God takes on a particular, historical human form. That's something which to me flows straight out the history of the people of Israel, where God identifies not just as 'God' (in general, whatever we mean by 'God'), but as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (of Israel). He's a God who did things, who said things, with a Name.

Jesus/Yeshua likewise is not an 'ideal', but a historical Jewish person. So, theoretically, art can depict Jesus. That's got to be valid due to the incarnation, even if it always carries with it the risk of distorting Jesus too (e.g. when he's depicted as a white European!).

I believe the command in Exodus 20 is about when we begin to worship the mute statues themselves, and the 'gods' which human beings create to reflect ourselves. Art is different. We don't (or Exodus 20, I believe, clearly teaches we shouldn't) worship art, but art can still help us to think about the living, risen Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ!

A most frequent danger I see whenever we sever Jesus from His Jewish identity, is that we risk turning Him into a kind of divine superhero figure (the Jesus of our imagination), rather than the Messiah of Israel (the real Jesus we encounter). There's got to be no surer sign that we'd departed from Jesus, as the Christ/Messiah of Israel, than when we see the Jewish people today as having been disinherited.

Jews are still Jesus' own people, Israel is still Israel, and Jesus wouldn't be Jesus if Israel were not part of him, just as Jesus is part of Israel.

The image we have of who Jesus is in our mind's eye directly relates to that. It has real consequences in terms of how Christians think of, and therefore treat, Jews.

 

[Dave L]

It's interesting how a debate about Israel has appeared in relation to a question about images. It could be a separate debate, but I think there really is an important link to be made.

When the Word becomes flesh, the eternal God takes on a particular, historical human form. That's something which to me flows straight out the history of the people of Israel, where God identifies not just as 'God' (in general, whatever we mean by 'God'), but as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (of Israel). He's a God who did things, who said things, with a Name.

Jesus/Yeshua likewise is not an 'ideal', but a historical Jewish person. So, theoretically, art can depict Jesus. That's got to be valid due to the incarnation, even if it always carries with it the risk of distorting Jesus too (e.g. when he's depicted as a white European!).

I believe the command in Exodus 20 is about when we begin to worship the mute statues themselves, and the 'gods' which human beings create to reflect ourselves. Art is different. We don't (or Exodus 20, I believe, clearly teaches we shouldn't) worship art, but art can still help us to think about the living, risen Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ!

A most frequent danger I see whenever we sever Jesus from His Jewish identity, is that we risk turning Him into a kind of divine superhero figure (the Jesus of our imagination), rather than the Messiah of Israel (the real Jesus we encounter). There's got to be no surer sign that we'd departed from the Jesus, than when we see the Jewish people today as having been disinherited.

Jews are still Jesus' own people, Israel is still Israel, and Jesus wouldn't be Jesus if Israel were not part of him, just as Jesus is part of Israel.

The image we have of who Jesus is in our mind's eye directly relates to that. It has real consequences in terms of how Christians think of, and therefore treat, Jews.

If we interpret the OT by the New, especially Romans 11, Jesus IS Israel along with believers in him. And the broken off Jews of Romans 11 will only be reattached through faith in him.

 

[Adam Raffell]

If we interpret the OT by the New, especially Romans 11, Jesus IS Israel along with believers in him. And the broken off Jews of Romans 11 will only be reattached through faith in him.

I've posted elsewhere my reading of Romans 9-11 I think, but I just can't share the interpretation above. I think we have to flip the logic on it's head and say that because Jesus is Messiah, and yes in that sense Israel's representative as you say (although representative, not 'replacement', because that's what a 'Messiah' is!), we trust in the positive expectation that the 'regrafting'/'reattaching' is a given - Paul anticipates their inclusion in 11:12 (and again in 11:26 and 11:28).

Paul is using a metaphor with the olive tree, and it breaks down when we think of being 'cut off' or 'grafted in' in absolute terms. "For God's gifts and call are irrevocable..." - there's a paradox here. God's people will always remain God's people ('children of promise' from chapter 9); to be God's people you have to believe in Jesus; but not all of God's people believe in Jesus.... so how do we make sense of that?

That's why we get the parallelism between wild branches being 'grafted in' and natural ones being 'cut off', because being 'grafted in' or 'cut off' are both provisional. Sort of 'cut off', sort of not. Sort of 'grafted in', but liable to be 'cut off'. It's dialectical: both 'in' and 'out'. If we, the wild branches think of ourselves as being superior to Paul's 'cut off' natural branches, we've missed the boat (and the point!). We're forgetting that the root supports us and by doing that, we in turn risk finding ourselves 'cut off' too (again, provisionally). Denying the place of the Jewish people means ultimately denying Jesus, because Jesus is one of them and He has never rejected them. The door remains wide open. To all of us.

The Jewish people are faithful to God. They are still His people and he still loves them. Of course we're not saying that we can trivialise the matter of belief/unbelief in Jesus(!), but God's plan appears to have accounted for it and in Paul's thinking we're heading for a great reconciliation. It creates necessary space for Christians to give a positive account of Israel and Jewish people.

Again, it goes back to our 'image' of who Jesus us.

 

[Dave L]

I've posted elsewhere my reading of Romans 9-11 I think, but I just can't share the interpretation above. I think we have to flip the logic on it's head and say that because Jesus is Messiah, and yes in that sense Israel's representative as you say (although representative, not 'replacement', because that's what a 'Messiah' is!), we trust in the positive expectation that the 'regrafting'/'reattaching' is a given - Paul anticipates their inclusion in 11:12 (and again in 11:26 and 11:28).

Paul is using a metaphor with the olive tree, and it breaks down when we think of being 'cut off' or 'grafted in' in absolute terms. "For God's gifts and call are irrevocable..." - there's a paradox here. God's people will always remain God's people ('children of promise' from chapter 9); to be God's people you have to believe in Jesus; but not all of God's people believe in Jesus.... so how do we make sense of that?

That's why we get the parallelism between wild branches (Gentiles) being 'grafted in' and (some) Jews being 'cut off'. Both are equally provisional. Sort of 'cut off', sort of not. Both 'in' and 'out'. If we, the wild branches think of ourselves as being superior to these cut off 'natural' branches, we've missed the boat (and the point!). We're forgetting that the root supports us and by doing that, we in turn risk finding ourselves cut off too (again, provisionally). Denying the place of the Jewish people means ultimately denying Jesus, because Jesus is one of them and He has never rejected them. The door is wide open.

In the NT Jesus and believers in him are Israel. God removed the unbelievers. Only those who accept Christ will God reattach to Israel.