Nasher:
quote:
"The attitude of some people in this thread has greived me, are we not supposed to be one?"

why are you grieved?

because of a fellow brother's or sister's "attitude"?

and the implication we are not one?

is that love?

if people ask me, 'who are you? what are you? what 'religion' (a word that is fell) are you'?

i tell them succintly and simply, "i'm a Jew who follows Jesus"......

do i celebrate the Jewish holidays? no.....save one, Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, except that was one day out of the year, but with Jesus, everyday is now Yom Kippur.

may i make a suggestion? a valuable tome, entitled "Life Together", 128 pages written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, if you havent already read it.

Dietrich clearly delineates the difference between the dark controlling urges of human love, as opposed to the Divine Love of Jesus. It's really quite good, deceptively simple, yet Powerful in its substance and witness...

A few years back, in church, a well meaning, but confused brother told me i was no longer a "Jew", but a "Christian", and all i had for him was this Psalm...137

"By the waters of Babylon,
there we sat down and wept,
when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
we hung up our lyres.
For there our captors
required of us songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
"Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
How shall we sing the LORD’s song
in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand forget its skill!
Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy!"

verses 1-6 (ESV--sorry Pilgrim, just the way it is)

The Psalter is, after all the Prayer Book of Jesus.

so why the grief? is your love with agenda? or without?

neil

Awesome, Neil! I'm so glad you've never lost sight of the wonderful gift you've been given by God, being a natural branch of Israel. I'm also glad you don't subscribe to any of this replacementist nonsense. Keep on.

_________________
Mark Nash

Hi Nasher,

The way you phrased your opening post, I thought you wanted to do your own research in such a way as to discover for yourself, how to understand scriptural references to 'Seed' (capital s), as opposed to 'seeds'; to 'see' for yourself how Paul is confident that the "Seed" was Christ, and that He was the same seed God promised Eve, as much as to Mary.

This is a huge study (if you do it properly), and I don't claim to have done it all. In fact, Paul makes a huge shortcut for us, by laying the thumbnail out, in Romans.

The reason Jewishness comes into it, is that this is the name by which Abraham's descendants were finally known, God increasing His revelation of Himself and His plan, down through their generations after Adam, so that WHEN Christ (Messiah in Hebrew) was born, they would KNOW it was HIM - the promised "Seed".

However, hidden within this physical journey, is a strong spiritual message about liberty from sin - purity (virginity), holiness (separation), espousal (promise to marry or be married); how to tune into God's values on these matters, how to fulfil all that He desires us to become, as 'the generation of Jesus Christ' (Matt 1:1)

Right back in Genesis, God had made man in His own image. After the fall, when the man had children, scripture says they were in his own likeness (the generationS of Adam). So, the stage is set. God wants sons in HIS own image still, and yet Adam's race have received the seed of sin and death through unbelief.

These themes are interwoven throughout the account of what happened next and how in the fulness of time God provided that "Seed" who should crush the serpent's head IN US, that we may become BY FAITH the sons of God.

Through Abraham, 'Israel', the spiritual man, came into being, and from him (Jacob), in natural terms, the "Seed" had to be descended. This is refined further through the life of David (now in the promised land, who eventually had reclaimed all of the land given to Abraham). However Solomon (meaning Peace), quickly lost hold of it, and it has never since been reclaimed corporately by the 'children of Israel'. The spiritual truths in this narrative only prove that the problem with man is not his fighting capability, but his heart towards God.

Genesis 50 contians this valuable prophecy about the fate of 'Israel'. '... and the physicians embalmed Israel. 3 And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed: and the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days.' Eventually, Israel's descendant, Jesus Christ, was embalmed, representative of the whole human race,, that when we have wept over our sins (the Egyptians in our lives), and got over our own death in Him, we may be a new creation through having received the incorruptible seed of His life (the engrafted word), and live in His resurrection.

Perhaps you had hoped for a discussion about the land, but, if we take the words of Jesus VERY seriously, who never talked about the restoration of 'Israel' as even His disciples still hoped for it just before His [correction] ascension, (Acts 1), then there are many allusions to another country somewhere, including 'My kingdom is not of this world' and 'God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.' (Heb 11:40)

By Acts 3, Peter is talking about 'the restitution of ALL things' (not just Israel), and I believe Jewish Christians are wise to take their lead from him on that point.

_________________
Allan Halton

To Nasher and EverestoSama,

I forgot to mention, now I understand what 'midrash' means, that if you read Phil Goble's introduction to the OJB as I suggested, with reference only to his analysis of the Hebrew word for virgin (as in virgin Mary), you will see midrash emerging, and in being able to justify Mary's first son, as 'the Messiah'.

I'm not sure what you're grieved about Nasher, but to go back to your original post, the promise of the land was made to the seed of Abraham.

But Paul with apostolic authority says, "For the promise that he should be be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith..." (Rom. 4.13).

Wow. Not just "the land," but the whole world! And the ancients understood that word "world" (Gk. kosmos) to include the heavens as well as the earth. the cosmos, the universe!

And this is for Abraham and his seed. Who are the blessed seed who inherit all things?

"...Thy seed, which is Christ" (Gal. 3.16).

And, "if ye be Christ's then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Gal. 3.29).

_________________
Allan Halton

I don't see the Church as replacing physical Israel. I think that is nonsense.

I see the Church as a continuation of spiritual Israel (those that have the faith of Abraham).

3,000 jews were saved on Pentecost. This is the Church.

Gentiles were grafted in, they did not replace anything.

Hi Nasher,

This page makes some salient points regarding Abraham, and the beginning of the gospel.

http://www.biblewheel.com/wheel/spokes/Aleph_Abraham.asp

HEBREWS 11

37 "They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.

39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, 40 since God had planned something better for us.....

..... so that only together with us would they be made perfect."
..........................................................
"I see the Church as a continuation of spiritual Israel (those that have the faith of Abraham).

3,000 jews were saved on Pentecost. This is the Church.

Gentiles were grafted in, they did not replace anything."
PILGRIM777...............................................
Revelation 7

9 After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count,.......

....from every nation, tribe, people and language,......

standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.”

There is no separation of Jew or Gentile in the New Testament, especially defined within the gospel of Paul. There is no Abrahamic Seed, and a separate Jewish one.

There is ONE seed, which is Christ, and He fell into the ground and died, an brought forth the holy seed of God, His beloved Family; the Church...US....and was slain before the foundation of the world.

Collosians 3
"Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, 10 and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him,

11 where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all."