I wrote an essay on this, hopefully this clears up some of this...(sorry kenneth I haven't adressed your comment, hopefully this answers that issue)
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Imagine some Christian telling you "God is done with you, you doubted too many times, sinned too many times, God has rejected you." I would be so destroyed. Yet many theologians are doing that to Israel today. This is soooo completely not okay. You cannot alienate an entire ethnicity from God's plan of salvation simply because it does not match your church theology, guys we need to do better! Many theologians, I would say the majority of churches are denying God’s call on Israel and saying God gave it to the Christians. But God wrote a whole chapter refuting that notion: romans 11. Let’s rewind a little bit and zoom out for a bigger picture of how this happened. There is a big debate among theologians between something called dispensationalism and covenant theology (reformed views). The number one argument against dispensationalism is that there are different gospels in the Bible. And from my studies there are in fact different gospels according to their beliefs. But the biggest argument against covenantal theology is that they say that God revoked Israel. Yes God did ‘divorce’ Israel according to scripture. But just like any of us, just because we become prodigal children, He does not deny us the opportunity to come back. The only thing Israel lost was some of the rewards of following Christ all those years. One day according to scripture Israel will come to know the true messiah. “And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob” Romans 11:26. So I challenge you to ask your pastor if He believes in the concept of replacement theology. Most reformed churches do, however in recent years there has been a merging of doctrine (which is a good thing), there is no solid line between covenantal theology and dispensationalism. For instance John Piper is a soft covenantal theologian (and includes Israel into the will of God); however John Macarthur is a soft dispensationalist. So more and more as theologians are seeing the errors of extremism, we are meeting on middle Ground. Which is Jesus. One thing Piper says regarding dispensationalism is that ‘Is the literal viewpoint.’ I agree hyper dispensationalism has some serious problems, namely different gospels and different kingdoms and different stuff all the time in different ages. There are also other errors with dispensationalism that John Macarthur points to (as a dispensationalist), namely free grace soteriology, and cessationalism. Both are taught by free gracers and are against scripture. Does that mean we should reject a literal view of the Bible? Well hold on there, there are many positives of dispensationalism. See with the advent of the Scofield study Bible (the first study Bible) dispensationalism spurred a return in the early 1900’s to the Bible. Dispensationalism also came up with the very first systematic theology (chafer systematic theology), and systematic theology was a byproduct of the flood of theology that evolved from dispensationalism. Ever heard of the popular rapture theory, yes that was a principle of dispensationalism. So don’t throw the baby out with the bath water, don’t allegorize all the prophecy relating to Israel, thousands of words of the Bible and solely apply it to yourself as a Christian. Yes there are long term and short term fulfillments of prophecy, and yes we can claim promises for us in the scripture. But don’t forget the immediate fulfillment in History either. Let’s dig more into romans 11 to take some principles out of it. One can also google “scriptures that disprove replacement theology.” So let’s dig in…
In chapter 11 of romans it indicates the error that God would reject anyone over a sin issue….
“I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles.”Romans 11:11
Furthermore God reiterates He would never reject one whom He elected to salvation:
“God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew.” Romans 11:2
There is a pride among theologians that Christianity is better than Israel…… (Israel is the root of our faith) remember what God says…
“do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.” Romans 11:18
So again you don’t have to accept all the dispensations but I think there are at least three. You have Adam and eve, they had one thing to do… not eat of the fruit, and they didn’t so they lost salvation sort to say…but it was a different age of salvation. And they failed at it. Secondly there was the old testament sacrifice….Leviticus said the sacrifices did temporarily forgive sin… Leviticus 4:20. Now that was a different type of salvation. Now the first system just failed, the second system was with a view toward a third system. Real eternal salvation. So while I deny that there were different salvations, in the long term, there were short term different methods of salvation. Adam and eve originally were not saved by faith. They had seen God face to face and didn’t technically need faith at that time. They were saved by obedience. And when that system failed, God purported to reveal His long term plan of salvation, that of faith through grace. But He would institute sacrifice to temporarily cover sin, I suppose in order that in divorcing Israel, God would not REALLY reject them. If there was no Leviticus, then Israel would be so wicked before God that God would not have entertained them. So there was a need for sacrifice. So again covenant theologians focus on long term salvation and say we are saved by faith in every age, which is not really right. Adam and eve were not saved by faith…on short term. Yes long term they are saved by faith because they went to Abraham’s bosom and had the gospel preached to them, when Christ descended into hell. So yes they are saved by faith long term but not short term. Dispensationalists focus on the long term ‘salvation by faith.’ And forget that salvation also involves repentance. Many covenant theologians understand salvic repentance. But dispensationalists seem to miss that part. So again there are errors on both views. I respect the dispensational view more simply because even John Piper admitted it’s the more literal view. But it does have errors. I only mention some of them. I do believe covenant theology has more errors, namely rejecting Israel. Which is why I mention this article, so again use this information, tell your pastor and ask Him if He believes the church superseded all the biblical promises for Israel and usurped them to themselves. Romans 11 says not so. While yes, we were grafted into the vine of blessing, and while we borrowed some of the fruit. We would not be here if it were not for Israel. And we should not boast against the root of our faith…and say God has rejected the Jew. One day they will all be saved.
