loyalty to the people of Israel?

[The Liturgist]

Look at Romans chapter 11 where Paul talks about the olive tree and olive branches.

In Christianity a Jew doesn't become a Gentile, and a Gentile doesn't become a Jew. But they don't need to. Because whether one is Jewish or Gentile, in Jesus all are one, a new people.

The olive tree has both natural branches and wild branches which were grafted on--but all drink of the same nourishment from the root. The natural branches which were pruned, and wild branches which are not grafted suffer the same problem--they are not connected to the life-giving root of the olive tree.

Whether a natural or wild grafted branch, the two are the same when connected to the root.
Whether a natural or wild branch which is separated from the root, neither has life unless they are connected and restored to the root.

Being a Jew or being a Gentile isn't what matters.
Jesus Christ is what matters.

Has God forsaken those Jews who are not in Christ? No.
Has God neglected those Gentiles who are not in Christ? No.

For God has consigned all to disobedience in order that He might have mercy on all (Romans 11:32); for the Gospel is the power of God to save all who believe, the Jew first and also the Gentile (Romans 1:16). For in this Gospel is the righteousness of God, from faith to faith, so that the righteous live by faith (Romans 1:17). Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing; but Christ is everything.

So there is one People, one Church, one Israel--in the Messiah. For where the two (Jew and Gentile) were formerly strangers, the both are now one.

-CryptoLutheran

Indeed so. This is the apostolic faith.

 

[65James]

Psalms 89:26-28 speaks of Jesus and the New Covenant which the Jews rejected. This is also spoken of in Malachi 3:1 and Daniel 9:24-27 speaks of this and the exact date of Christ’s resurrection. When we read Galatians 3:14-24 we see the New Covenant is older than the Old Covenant. For the promise of Christ was 430 years before the Law Galatians 3:17.
So that we see the Jews rejected the Promise of Christ Abraham’s seed. Thus for time being they are under the curse of the law but we receive His Promise Grace. Isaiah 8:17-18 speaks of this.

 

[Yeshua HaDerekh]

Psalms 89:26-28 speaks of Jesus and the New Covenant which the Jews rejected. Thus for time being they are under the curse of the law but we receive His Promise Grace.

All Jews rejected it? If there is no law then there is no sin and no need for grace...

 

[The Liturgist]

Psalms 89:26-28 speaks of Jesus and the New Covenant which the Jews rejected. This is also spoken of in Malachi 3:1 and Daniel 9:24-27 speaks of this and the exact date of Christ’s resurrection. When we read Galatians 3:14-24 we see the New Covenant is older than the Old Covenant. For the promise of Christ was 430 years before the Law Galatians 3:17.
So that we see the Jews rejected the Promise of Christ Abraham’s seed. Thus for time being they are under the curse of the law but we receive His Promise Grace. Isaiah 8:17-18 speaks of this.

A very large number of Jews became Christians and indeed some of the Orthodox church, for example, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the Mar Thoma Christians in Kerala, India, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Antiochian Orthodox Church, and the Assyrian Church of the East, among others (in particular, those churches which comprise portions of the ancient Patriarchates of Jerusalem and Antioch and of Seleucia-Cstesiphon and Mesopotamia, the successor city to Babylon and the precursor to Baghdad, the former cities abandoned over time due to the migration of the Tigris river), have significant fractions, even a majority, in the case of the Ethiopians, of members who are descended from Jews, and some of the Mar Thoma Christians in India who are of Judaic descent are endogamous, so can be regarded as mostly Hebrew in ethnicity.

Now, I regard these as Christians of Jewish descent, rather than Jews, but on the other hand Rabinnical Judaism isn’t really Judaism in the ancient sense of Second Temple Judaism but rather has changed so much since the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD as to be almost a different religion. Likewise the Karaites, who practice something like Sola Scriptura, rejecting Rabinnical tradition and the Talmud in favor of their own tradition and an approach to logical interpretation of the scriptures called the Kalaam, have their own novel interpretation, which includes among other ideas a rejection of a belief in the existence of the devil as a singular entity (for example, they regard the serpent in the garden of Eden as a cunning snake, which I find absurd and amusing, but what I do not find amusing, although it is absurd, is the horrible persecution the Karaite Jews have endured in Israel at the hands of the Chief Rabbinate, which controls the use of the word “Kosher”, and given that it is a Rabinnate, an institution that Karaites by their very nature reject, it obviously discriminates against them, and I will say some Karaite interpretaitons of Scripture make more sense to me than their Rabinnical counterparts, for example, Karaite fringes are in both white and blue dye, as indicated by the literal Old Testament, whereas the Rabinnical Jews only use white dye because they believe the specific hue and the formula for making that color dye was lost, and it would be a sin to use an incorrect color, this being an example of the Rabinnical principle of creating additional restrictions around the laws of the Torah for fear of transgressing them, which I suppose derives from the lack of assured forgiveness and the somewhat dismal circumstances that resulted from the loss of the Temple and the ordinary means of propitiation of sin). Likewise the Beta Israel, the Ethiopian Jews, whose worship is almost identical to Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, except the Beta Israel perform animal sacrifices instead of celebrating the one all-sufficient sacrifice of Christ in the Eucharist, and also have the Star of David rather than the Cross on their otherwise identical vestments, experience discrimination in Israel, from the Chief Rabinnate.

However, these religious issues of discrimination are specific to the relationship of these Jewish minority denominations with the Chief Rabinate; the secular authorities on the other hand have not engaged in such discrimination, and indeed after the tolerant Christian Emperor Haile Selassie was martyred by the Derg communists, who strangled him, in the mid 1970s, and then like most communists embarked on an anti-Semitic agenda, the Israelis did mount a rather heroic effort to evacuate the majority of Ethiopian Jews (a small population remained, or perhaps some returned after the downfall of the Derg in the early 1990s and the restoration of democracy, but I think the population of Beta Israel in Ethiopia is around a thousand, give or take a few hundred, the majority having moved to Israel. Many Rabbis believed the Ethiopian Jewish males needed to be “recircumcised”, but this in the end did not happen as the government officially recognized their Judaism.

This incident did demonstrate that the State of Israel can be effective at protecting Jews from pogroms, genocides and ethnic cleansing, which is good, since for many centuries Jews have suffered from this, lamentably on too many occasions at the hands of Christians. Now ironically we need to persuade Israel to adopt policies to covertly protect the persecuted Christians of the Middle East, while appearing to not protect them, because this could be a death sentence for the endangered Christians in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. It is my hope that Evangelical Christian support of the Jewish cause in the US will help persuade the Jews to in turn engage in discrete and subtle policies that will benefit the Orthodox Christian population in the Palestinian territories and in the surrounding lands.

 

[stevevw]

I have another question. I don't know if I understand this with loyalty to the people of Israel, i.e. the Jews. Because we are now Christians and not Jews. Isn't this somehow disloyal of Jesus to start a new religion because the Jews didn't recognize him? God is faithful to the Jews but now they have to take the next step and become Christians? Or if Judaism does recognize Jesus as the Messiah, will we all become Jews again?

I don't think the Jews started a new religion they just did not take up the new Covenant of their own religion. Like the bible says
'For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness'. (Romans 10:3

But it is the spreading of the Gospel because of this that the Gentiles, the rest of the world is able to be saved and I think it is this that will eventually persuade the Jews to look to Christ.

I think basically every nation seems to be against the Jews except Christian nations. Though there is a growing number within Christian nations who are against the Jews but they are also against Christians. So I think we have this relationship with the Jews and I think its this relationship that will shine through to open the eyes up of many Jews.

Its when this will happen that others will come to see God. But its also a time when many gather against the Jews and Christians, against the Christian God. Especially Islam whose aim from the beginning has been to undermine Christ as the Messiah.