The Remnant

[notreligus]

Romans 9:27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, "THOUGH THE NUMBER OF THE SONS OF ISRAEL BE LIKE THE SAND OF THE SEA, IT IS THE REMNANT THAT WILL BE SAVED;

Romans 11:5 In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God's gracious choice.

Is the Remnant also parenthetical?

 

[Interplanner]

If you mean parenthetical as in D'ism, that is a misconception anyway. The fact that this Isaiah passage borrowed on the Genesis imagery shows the change in the OT over time. Yes, the nation did become numerous, but only the remnant will be saved in the new meaning that is/was coming in the NT.

 

[notreligus]

If you mean parenthetical as in D'ism, that is a misconception anyway. The fact that this Isaiah passage borrowed on the Genesis imagery shows the change in the OT over time. Yes, the nation did become numerous, but only the remnant will be saved in the new meaning that is/was coming in the NT.

I am hoping that the MAD people (Mid-Acts Dispensationals) will address this. They are insistent that the Jews/Israel and the Church have separate destinies, so I want them to address the destiny of the Remnant, or those Jews who have already believed in Christ as the Messiah, as an answer to the prophecy of Isaiah.

 

[Interplanner]

Thanks for the def of MAD. I hope your hope is fulfilled, as it should be.

The unstated or barely-stated key that clarifies Rom 9-11 is that Paul wanted Israel to be missionaries of the new Gospel like he was. It starts to show through in 10:14, where, working backwards, Paul shows the need for people (his people) to be sent to preach the Gospel, which would fulfill Is. 52. This would eventually answer how people will be able to call on the Lord for salvation.

You can also see his desire to see them all join in his mission in Acts in various places, but most directly in the hearing in 26:29, the same ch. where he said the hope of Israel was already fulfilled in the resurrection of Christ, not the ongoing work of running the worship system in Jerusalem.

 

[notreligus]

Thanks for the def of MAD. I hope your hope is fulfilled, as it should be.

The unstated or barely-stated key that clarifies Rom 9-11 is that Paul wanted Israel to be missionaries of the new Gospel like he was. It starts to show through in 10:14, where, working backwards, Paul shows the need for people (his people) to be sent to preach the Gospel, which would fulfill Is. 52. This would eventually answer how people will be able to call on the Lord for salvation.

You can also see his desire to see them all join in his mission in Acts in various places, but most directly in the hearing in 26:29, the same ch. where he said the hope of Israel was already fulfilled in the resurrection of Christ, not the ongoing work of running the worship system in Jerusalem.

You are so right!!!!

Maybe I frequent the wrong locations but I look in at about four or five discussion forums - don't necessarily spend lots of time at all of them - and Mid-Acts Dispensationalism has become the norm. One of the largest theology discussion forums on the Internet has a separate forum for the discussion of Mid-Acts Dispensationalism. I'm sure you know that one of the claims about the millennium is that during the millennium Israel will take the Gospel to the rest of the world. All of the Body of Christ, including the Remnant and the saved Gentiles, are supposed to be doing that now. Also, it is claimed that the Jews will have Temple worship and animal sacrifices restored and they will be taught the meaning of all of the OT prophecies during the millennium. The rest of us hear the Gospel and within moments we are convicted one way or another. We're not given a thousand years.

Perhaps you see this, too, but I am noticing a surge in doctrines which are bizarre. They are not new but it seems that all tires eventually go flat and someone comes along and starts putting air in them again. Such are some of these doctrines. Mid-Acts Dispensationalism, which was known a hundred years ago under other doctrinal names such as Kingdom Postponement Theory and Parenthesis Church Theory is not new, although many of the new converts to this belief think this is a recent revelation. They believe that we are the "mystery" Church and only Paul was given the revelation about the Body of Christ and this age of the Church or this age of Grace. Thus, the Kingdom was postponed (the Jews thwarted God's plans, which supports Open Theism) and God went to Plan B and took the Gospel to the Gentiles. This Remnant group seems to be a hot potato. They don't know what to do with them. One MAD person told me that after the Remnant is raptured to Heaven the rest of the Church will remain there and the Remnant has to return to Earth to be with the rest of the Jews during the Millennium and beyond.

 

[Interplanner]

Thanks for the def of MAD. They only appear to off by one epoch.

I find that the rapture is frequently used like the 'secret passages' on the CLUE boardgame. All of a sudden you can be clear across the universe or another epoch, so that the mill or genetic Israel or nation of Israel makes "sense."

Yes, many people no longer have strong doctrinal muscles to help them sort through these things.

I believe there are a few 'self-organizing' chapter in the NT that organize the Bible (while being aware that the total quotes of the OT are 2500). They are:

Rom 3-4, 9-11
Gal 3-4
2 Cor 3-6
Acts 13's sermon
Eph 2-3
Heb 9-10

I mean, these make the broadest statements about the all of history and the OT up to the time of the Gospel, so they are organizing the material. (A person might say well, the Rev does that too, but it is so fraught with images and conflicting details and strange materials that I would never use it the same way. "Ordinary passages should govern symbolic ones" as Ramm taught).

I don't think D'ism or MAD comes close to realizing that the Bible itself has such 'self-organizing' chapters. They try to 'put it together' themselves. The risk of doing that is that you might then come across one of these chapters and feel like a deer staring into headlights. I know many people who just go, I have no idea what this is about. Well, it is about the very thing that some special national Bible teacher taught, but in discord from it.

 

[notreligus]

Thanks for the def of MAD. They only appear to off by one epoch.

I find that the rapture is frequently used like the 'secret passages' on the CLUE boardgame. All of a sudden you can be clear across the universe or another epoch, so that the mill or genetic Israel or nation of Israel makes "sense."

Yes, many people no longer have strong doctrinal muscles to help them sort through these things.

I believe there are a few 'self-organizing' chapter in the NT that organize the Bible (while being aware that the total quotes of the OT are 2500). They are:

Rom 3-4, 9-11
Gal 3-4
2 Cor 3-6
Acts 13's sermon
Eph 2-3
Heb 9-10

I mean, these make the broadest statements about the all of history and the OT up to the time of the Gospel, so they are organizing the material. (A person might say well, the Rev does that too, but it is so fraught with images and conflicting details and strange materials that I would never use it the same way. "Ordinary passages should govern symbolic ones" as Ramm taught).

I don't think D'ism or MAD comes close to realizing that the Bible itself has such 'self-organizing' chapters. They try to 'put it together' themselves. The risk of doing that is that you might then come across one of these chapters and feel like a deer staring into headlights. I know many people who just go, I have no idea what this is about. Well, it is about the very thing that some special national Bible teacher taught, but in discord from it.

Thanks for your insights. They are appreciated.

 

[Danoh]

You are so right!!!!

Maybe I frequent the wrong locations but I look in at about four or five discussion forums - don't necessarily spend lots of time at all of them - and Mid-Acts Dispensationalism has become the norm. One of the largest theology discussion forums on the Internet has a separate forum for the discussion of Mid-Acts Dispensationalism. I'm sure you know that one of the claims about the millennium is that during the millennium Israel will take the Gospel to the rest of the world. All of the Body of Christ, including the Remnant and the saved Gentiles, are supposed to be doing that now. Also, it is claimed that the Jews will have Temple worship and animal sacrifices restored and they will be taught the meaning of all of the OT prophecies during the millennium. The rest of us hear the Gospel and within moments we are convicted one way or another. We're not given a thousand years.

Perhaps you see this, too, but I am noticing a surge in doctrines which are bizarre. They are not new but it seems that all tires eventually go flat and someone comes along and starts putting air in them again. Such are some of these doctrines. Mid-Acts Dispensationalism, which was known a hundred years ago under other doctrinal names such as Kingdom Postponement Theory and Parenthesis Church Theory is not new, although many of the new converts to this belief think this is a recent revelation. They believe that we are the "mystery" Church and only Paul was given the revelation about the Body of Christ and this age of the Church or this age of Grace. Thus, the Kingdom was postponed (the Jews thwarted God's plans, which supports Open Theism) and God went to Plan B and took the Gospel to the Gentiles. This Remnant group seems to be a hot potato. They don't know what to do with them. One MAD person told me that after the Remnant is raptured to Heaven the rest of the Church will remain there and the Remnant has to return to Earth to be with the rest of the Jews during the Millennium and beyond.

Boy, you are so FAR off - "God went to plan B" - where do you come up with such notions - certainly not from us, for that is not what we assert!

You are showing YOUR supposition of how we see these things NOT how we actually do.

In another thread you assert that you have been familiar with the Mid-Acts position for 12 years. Obviously, what you have been familiar is what a good friend of mine; who also opposes Mid-Acts, is familier with - his OWN notions read (red) into what I share with him.

In his defence at least, he is a very simple minded individual as a result of a neurologoical issue. As a result he actually believes that what he is HEARING from me is the same as what HE is INTERPRETING it to mean - he actually declares they are one and the same thing. He is simply unable to distinguish between the two, and not just with these issues.

I suspect that is what you have done as well, thus, your SO OFF notions about what we assert, then taken by you to be what we mean, to which you then FURTHER ADD your notions.

That is either the mark of a simpleton, or of a dishonest individual.

For your information, what we do hold as to Paul's "remant according to the election of grace...at this present time" - is that it is a reference to those of Israel BACK THEN that had actually been Israel - the Israel of God at THAT present time.

It is a reference to THEIR "present time" BACK THEN, which was WHEN they were sealed, and were thus the "in part" - of those of THAT nation NOT blinded.

They were sealed, and" the rest were blinded...UNTIL the fulness of the Gentiles be come in."

And again, NONE of this had been some sort of a plan B, or afterthought on God's part - that is YOUR conjecture IN YOU NOT HAVING ACTUALLY HEARD OUT OUR POSITION THOSE SUPPOSED 12 YEARS.

Seriously, you ought to a be ashamed of yourself, per what you will now twist 2 Tim. 2:15, to be a reference to.

Danoh
Rom. 5:8

 

[Interplanner]

I've heard the Plan B many times. anything to save the "literal" (ie, not read the way Gal 3 or Acts 13's sermon does) promises to Israel.

Some of the confusion comes from the descriptions by Paul of the mystery that was not know in other generations. Well, to clarify, every generation since Gen 12 did know that the Seed was to bless the nations, and some from Gen 3 would know, too. But Paul didn't realize until being impounded by God that the nations would come into the new Israel/elect/remnant through Christ's work; Judaism thought it had to be through the law. Law vs. Gospel is therefore a very eschatological issue as well (some of those categories really don't help much!). He was excited to represent that it was by faith, which of course is only as good as its object, which was Christ's accomplishment.

I hope that helps this discussion, because it is not the church itself that is the mystery, but you get that idea from D'ists, or they call it a Plan B or a parenthesis, while the "real" action of a Davidic kingdom in Israel is coming.

I used to speak of this as the ABAB view instead of the ABA view. A = the nations salvation, which is the stage set by the Bible. B = the subplot of Israel. I don't find the NT returning to theme B, and Hebrews pretty much erases it in theory, and the DofJ was certainly an emphatic end, wasn't it?

 

[Danoh]

In my understanding, a Plan B, is a "just in case Plan A does not pan out." Or, "because Plan A did not pan out."

Neither of those is the Mid-Acts understanding of this parenthetical age, once kept secret, "hid in God" Himself, thus it's label the Mystery.

Our understanding is that, in Eternity, God had purposed a creature; the very Body of Christ Himself that would one day reign throughout creation as the fulness of Him - Christ - that filleth all (positions of rank and authority) in all creation.

The Adversary's rebellion has nothing to do with that plan, as it had been "hid in God" until Christ revealed it to all creation through Paul to the this new agency God was at last forming in Paul first; the Church (assembly of people) which is His Body.

Prior to its commencement and revealing at last - with Paul - God had already been out working His plan involving the Earth - "a kingdom of priests" - out of the seed of Abraham after the flesh "that church" (assembly of people) "which was in the wilderness" in Moses.

God planned to put this Earthly Prophesied - spoken of, revealed, written ever since Abram - Plan aside at a certain point in history; that He might at last commence His Once Kept Secret - never before revealed, spoken of, nor written about, kept hid in Himself - Plan for the Heavens through the above new creature.

He began to set this once kept a Mystery Program in motion not because Israel fell, but in line with that fall.

I see no Plan B in any of that. What I see is a Two-Fold Purpose.

Both folds - the Earth through a Kingdom of Priests (Israel) over the Nations, Israel as Servants of Christ as King - and the Heavenly through a New Creature (Body of Christ) with Christ its Head, the Body, not His Servant, but His Co-Heir on equal footing in Him - will also be the means by which He will restore all authority back unto Himself, whether they be on Earth, or in Heaven.

He built all that into His Planned, Two-Fold Purpose - God needs no Plan B.

Neither does he need scholarship to come up with fancy labels like Open Theism or what have you, all of which are nothing more than faith, not in Scripture alone for one's answers, but in the confusion that having turned from it now requires these individuals to have to solve for by some other means.

"Now, I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery; lest ye be wise in your own conceits..."

That "wisdom" in its own conceits is exactly where many look at "this mystery" from, if they do at all. And that is not even - the Mystery of Christ - that I have been laying out here.

Like a reformed Pastor friend of mine - the case he would present before me is always the same - a mix of "the scholars," and his own logic applied to what few passages he IS able to come up with. We both always laugh as we go, but he is always wrong in that practice, thus, in its result - human viewpoint ever willfully ignorant of its need have its mind be consistently renewed in knowledge of the image of Him that created him (the new creature) found only in Scripture.

He always finds it odd my conversation is so often laced with the very Book he professes to believe has ALL the answers.

In this, you're going to have "a devil of a time" laying your "learned" misconceptions on me as to the supposed errors of the Mid-Acts Perspective.

I questioned the heck out of it when I encountered it, set it aside for awhile, and went off with my Bible that I might first learn from it alone not to lean unto mine own understanding, that, by that, I might depart from such evil. Only then did I apply its principles to this then odd new doctrine to me - the Mid-Acts Perspective - and found the Bible's own Bible Study Principles affirm it sound.

In fact, when men like Acts 28ers; Anderson, Bullinger, Welch, and Mid-Actsers; O'Hair, Stam, and Baker don't agree with one another it is in those areas where they depart from the Bible's Own Study Principles - and that's them - they often stuck to the Book - what chance does someone obviously stuck in getting their notions from anything outside the Bible have of convincing me.

Thus, it's best we continue to examine how we look at these things, holding back where we are unsure, and if we should ask another for an answer, we should then question why their answer makes or does not make sense to us.

We should hear out their view, test it out, but we should also test out how it is we ourselves are testing it.

"Prove all things, retain that which is good" - 'Yes, Lord, but how do I determine that which is good IN YOUR EYES - are there passages in YOUR Book that aid in this?"

Danoh
Romans 5:8

 

[Interplanner]

The two parts of one plan still seems to keep them apart. Heaven is, after all, a ways from earth. In contrast to that, it looks to me like what happens on earth (the one people by faith) 'speaks' to principalities and powers (wherever their realm is) in Eph 3:10. They are said to be in a heavenly realm there, but mucking up things on earth all the time in 2:2 and 6:12 (both 'this dark world' and 'in heavenly realms').

 

[Danoh]

It is on the once kept "a mystery" part - the restoration of those Heavenly, or High Places EVEN NOW the Realm of "spiritual WICKEDNESS" til Romans 16:20's "SHALL bruise Satan UNDER your (the Body's) feet SHORTLY" that ISRAEL'S "on Earth AS IT IS IN HEAVEN" shall be made possible!

And, how long did it take the Lord to go to the Father, receive His glory, and appear to His Disciples - "the twinkling of an eye!"

Danoh
Eph. 4:16

 

[Biblewriter]

Romans 9:27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, "THOUGH THE NUMBER OF THE SONS OF ISRAEL BE LIKE THE SAND OF THE SEA, IT IS THE REMNANT THAT WILL BE SAVED;

Romans 11:5 In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God's gracious choice.

Is the Remnant also parenthetical?

I am not MAD, but as no one has actually answered your question, I will.

The very scriptures you are quoting shows the answer to your question.Romans 9:26-28 speak of the remnant of Israel that will be saved in the end:

26 "And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not My people,' There they shall be called sons of the living God."
27 Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel: "Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, The remnant will be saved.
28 For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, Because the LORD will make a short work upon the earth."
29 And as Isaiah said before: "Unless the LORD of Sabaoth had left us a seed, We would have become like Sodom, And we would have been made like Gomorrah."
Romans 9:26-29

This remnant is the faithful of Israel that are gathered as in Isaiah 66, purged of rebels as in Ezekiel 20, and brought to repentance as in Zechariah 12. The "short work" refers to the Judgment that will fall when Messiah finally comes at the end of Daniel's seventieth week, even as taught in the very oldest Christian commentary on scripture. This remnant will resume temple worship, with animal sacrifices, as explicitly declared in Ezekiel 40-46. All the world will join them in this worship, as declared in Isaiah 60-62, Jeremiah 16, Zechariah 14, and Malachi 1.


But Romans 11:5 is about the remnant of Israel that is currently being saved. This remnant of Israel is part of the Church, the one body to which both Jews and Gentiles are joined, as in Ehesians 2. They will go to Heaven with the church and never return to earth as a home. I do not say they will not return as judges.

 

[Danoh]

Well, that is partly how MAD sees that. For, we differ on the Rom. 9 interpretation. Our understanding is that Paul's "at this time" was a reference to "they of the Circumcision WHICH BELIEVED" Acts 10. In other words, those that had believed during the Lord's Earthly ministry to "the lost sheep of the house OF ISRAEL" Matt. 15:24 along with those OF ISRAEL saved during the Spirit's CONTINUANCE OF said ministry through Peter and the "little flock" Luke 12:32, Heb. 2.

They were the that part of the election of Israel at the time of Paul's "at this time" that Paul was declaring God had sealed, Rom. 9.

Again, a distinction has to be made between these - the Circumcision - as those of Israel that Paul refers to as OF Israel and "the rest OF THAT nation NOT of Israel, or IN UNcircumcision.

Danoh
Eph. 4:16

 

[Interplanner]

BW's right about the current remnant and Rom 11:5, but the use of the end of Rom 11 has many flaws in it. And the 9:28 material is about Paul's present not our future.

Actually the oldest commentary on Dan 9 is prob Josephus which I put in its own thread. That's after Jesus on commentary on 3 parts of it in Mt 24 & //s which is not futurist anyway.

 

[Biblewriter]

BW's right about the current remnant and Rom 11:5, but the use of the end of Rom 11 has many flaws in it. And the 9:28 material is about Paul's present not our future.

Actually the oldest commentary on Dan 9 is prob Josephus which I put in its own thread. That's after Jesus on commentary on 3 parts of it in Mt 24 & //s which is not futurist anyway.

You claimed that Josephus said this in Wars, Book 4, ch 7, prgr 386. Cornfeld's edition was published by Zondervan.

After long searching, I finally found it in William Winston's translation, which reads slightly differently that your quotation, but it is essentially the same.

“These men, therefore, trampled upon all the laws of men, and laughed at the laws of God; and for the oracles of the prophets, they ridiculed them as the tricks of jugglers; yet did these prophets foretell many things concerning [the rewards of] virtue, and [punishments of] vice, which when these zealots violated, they occasioned the fulfilling of those very prophecies belonging to their own country; for there was a certain ancient oracle of those men, that the city should then be taken and the sanctuary burnt, by right of war, when a sedition should invade the Jews, and their own hand should pollute the temple of God. Now while these zealots did not [quite] disbelieve these predictions, they made themselves the instruments of their accomplishment.”
This was in Wars of the Jews, 4.6.3, not 4.7.386. But that is a small matter.

What is of greater significance is that it is pure speculation to conclude that this is a reference to Daniel 9, Daniel 8, or any other scripture.

Indeed, this same William Winston, who translated the "Complete Works of Josephus," made the following comment about the statement by Josephus that you quoted:

"This prediction, that the city (Jerusalem) should then "be taken, and the sanctuary burnt, by right of war, when a sedition should invade Jews, and their own hands should pollute that temple;" or, as it is B. VI. ch. 2. sect. 1, "when any one should begin to slay his countrymen in the city;" is wanting in our present copies of the Old Testament. See Essay on the Old Test. p. 104--112. But this prediction, as Josephus well remarks here, though, with the other predictions of the prophets, it was now laughed at by the seditious, was by their very means soon exactly fulfilled. However, I cannot but here take notice of Grotius's positive assertion upon Matthew 26:9, here quoted by Dr. Hudson, that "it ought to be taken for granted, as a certain truth, that many predictions of the Jewish prophets were preserved, not in writing, but by memory." Whereas, it seems to me so far from certain, that I think it has no evidence nor probability at all.” This comment was made as note (10) in his endnotes to book 4.

So the claim that Josephus was commenting on the prophecies of Daniel is pure conjecture, unsupportble by analysis of the text.