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Discussion Forum : General Topics : Why are Jewish believers so important? Dr. Michael L. Brown

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 Re: Are you quoting someone?

/We both know when applying the scriptures to Israel we are to always take it literally in a figurative and purely spiritual sense..

How can a literal and yet purely spiritual sense be defined?

/For example Romans 11 is really referring to something other that what it is saying.

???

Are you quoting someone maybe?


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David Winter

 2016/4/7 18:58Profile









 Re:

Docs,
I think he's being sarcastic. 😏
God Bless,
Jeff

 2016/4/7 19:06
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 Re: OK

Well, it sort ot tickled my curiosity. In a literal spiritual type of way you know. I was sort of wondering a bit but maybe I was really doing something else. Whatever. I guess I may have been had!


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David Winter

 2016/4/7 19:21Profile









 Re:

David

Just trying to use the replacement/supersesionist/ Mauroist philosophy
of biblical (re)interpretation. That way perfect sense can be made of what appears to be nonsense when we translate the scriptures to say when they do not mean and mean what the do not say. Hope this brings clarity to you.

 2016/4/7 19:31
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 Re: I thought...

you might mean we should replace the literal established and plain meaning with something else so I thought maybe you were really a replacement theologian! Ha!


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David Winter

 2016/4/7 19:44Profile
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 Re:

Jeff-

I asked the question because of the quoted portion of the article. If you read the first paragraph of the quoted section, Dr Brown is implying that it is NOT the stubbornness of the Jewish people that are to blame for their resistance to the gospel but rather that their hearts have been hardened (presumably by God). That is Dr Browns assertion, not mine.

If they hardened their own heart, then their stubbornness would be to blame, but Dr Brown seems to be saying this is not the case. So he seems to be saying that God hardened their hearts for his own purposes.


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Todd

 2016/4/8 8:20Profile
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 Re:

Jeff-

In addition I am not 100% sure why you are appealing to Rom 7 as support for the doctrine of election. I just read it twice (i'll admit very quickly) and I don't see it.


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Todd

 2016/4/8 9:32Profile









 Re:

This is kind of a whole other (though related I believe based on the language shared in the texts concerning election) theological issue altogether other than just the Israel issue, but I say again, what does it mean in Exodus when it says "God hardened Pharoah's heart"?

Exodus 4:
21And the LORD said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the xmiracles that I have put in your power. But xI will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.

Exodus 7:
2xYou shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land. 3But xI will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I xmultiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, 4Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment.5The Egyptians xshall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.”

Exodus 9:
12xBut the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as xthe LORD had spoken to Moses.


Or how do you interpret what is said here in Romans 9 (I have been saying 7 I think, but I meant 9, sorry 😊)? And notice he actually brings the passages concerning God Himself hardening Pharaoh's heart into the discussion here:

Romans 9:
14What shall we say then? xIs there injustice on God's part? By no means!15For he says to Moses, x“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, x“For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

19You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For xwho can resist his will?” 20But who are you, O man, xto answer back to God? xWill what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” 21xHas the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump xone vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? 22What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience xvessels of wrath xprepared for destruction, 23in order to make known xthe riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he xhas prepared beforehand for glory— 24even us whom he xhas called, xnot from the Jews only but also from the Gentile's

And later in chapter 9 it shows that righteousness was not (ever) obtained by keeping the Law, but by faith, from Abraham, to the current predominate Gentile in-gathering among all the nations, to the end when Christ returns.

And Paul goes on in Romans 11 to explain when he discusses Israel's current state of "partial hardening" until Christ Sovereignly comes & saves all Isreal (which I believe will still be by a measure of faith, but God is the one who actually draws & enables/plants the seeds of faith to begin with - that's the whole point of Pharoah's, Romans 9, Romans 11, John 6 (36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37xAll that xthe Father gives me will come to me, and xwhoever comes to me I will never cast out......44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me xdraws him. And xI will raise him up on the last day.....65And he said, “This is why I told you xthat no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.....), etc., etc., etc.

And in Romans 11 it says this (how do you interpret this?):
11So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass xsalvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. 12Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!......15For if their rejection means xthe reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?......17But if xsome of the branches were broken off, and you, xalthough a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, 18do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. 19Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” 20That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you xstand fast through faith. So xdo not become proud, but xstand in awe. 21For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. 22Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, xprovided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise xyou too will be cut off. 23And xeven they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. 24For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree......25xLest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: xa partial hardening has come upon Israel, xuntil the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written,
x“The Deliverer will come xfrom Zion,
he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;
27
“and this will be my xcovenant with them
xwhen I take away their sins.”
28As regards the gospel, they are enemies of God for your sake. But as regards election, they are xbeloved for the sake of their forefathers. 29For the gifts and xthe calling of God are irrevocable. 30Just as xyou were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, 31so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. 32For God xhas consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.

33Oh, the depth of the riches and xwisdom and knowledge of God! xHow unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34
“For xwho has known the mind of the Lord,
or xwho has been his counselor?”
35
“Or xwho has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”
36For xfrom him and through him and to him are all things. xTo him be glory forever. Amen.

It Mentions the partial (temporary) hardening of Israel, the future coming I gathering of Israel before Christ's return, & Sounds an awful lot like the language on election back in Romans 9.

And if you recoil against this, think of the Muslims coming to Christ because Jesus has appeared to them in dreams. Jesus Himself appearing to them in dreams. Did you get that? I didn't. But praise God, am I going to reject their salvation & cram my theology down their throat and say, "blessed is the one who hasn't seen, but still believed" so they must not really be saved according to my little paradigm as if I'm the keeper of God's doctrine/truth & not the Sovereign Lord Himself who declared & instituted them (& has the power to save whom He will save)?

Or one of my best friends/brothers in our fellowship here's wife's mom. She was a DEVOUT & participating Cambodian Buddhist. But Jesus Himself appeared to her in dreams (like 3 I believe that led to her eventual salvation after the last one). Is that fair? What about the crazy drug addict down in the ghetto area here who Jesus never appeared to? Why should she have the advantage of a personal visitation? Shouldn't we all be on equal footing? Or can we then accuse God of "showing favoritism/partiality"? Who is man like clay in the Master's hands that we should say to the potter that we don't approve of His work?

Fact is, the scriptures show (from the OT prophets to the NT) that God is going to do a widespread, wholesale, work among the Jews in the land of Israel FOR HIS NAME'S/WORD'S SAKE, & so I am anxious to see it if the Lord wild it be in my lifetime, humbled to see God work in this way, joyous for the Jews that will be swept back in to the root of Jesus to which we as wild olive shoots were grafted in, & praying to that ends. God is God, His Word is true, & His ways are perfect. And I trust in the Lord's goodness/character, take Him at His Word, & lean not on my own understanding/human reasoning.

I essentially need to know how you interpret all these scriptures if you don't just take them at face value, plain interpretation/understanding. If you start down some "symbolic" road of interpretation on all of them, it gets impossible to be thoroughly & completely consistent throughout the scriptures & you gotta play hermeneutical interpretive "twister gymnastics" to even make a good run at it. But people do. I personally think it all means exactly what it says. I believe like William Tyndale that "the common plowboy" can understand these scriptures as well as the clergy-men. These are actually pretty plainly spoken passages really IMHO.
God Bless,
Jeff




 2016/4/8 10:01
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 Re: Israel's hardening

I don't think scripture portrays the hardening of the Jews as something God arbitraily did just because He was going to make them that way. It's bantered about pretty commonly that the Jews are stubborn above other peoples. You might hear, "They had their chance and they blew it because of their enormous stubborness above other peoples" but that is not the case. The Jewish heart is a revelation of what is in every heart outside of Christ. "For God has concluded all (Jew and Gentile) under sin that He might show mercy to all" (Jew and Gentile). The stubborness of the Jewish heart is a mirror of the stubborness of the Gentile heart. It's just that the Jewish nation was sovereginly chosen because of an election made in eternity that this people would be the one God revealed Himself through therefore their responsibility has been greater. To whom more is given more is required. The Jews were not chosen because they were more moral and more able to embrace faith than other peoples nor have they been nor are they more stubborn than other peoples. It's just that their status as the chosen vessel and nation God revealed Himself through has them under the "scandal of peculiarity." Therefore, because of their special choseness and calling the way they dealt with Christ took on enormous consequences because of the nature of the crime. This was the long awaited Messiah. He was altogether lovely in every respect and grew up as a tender shoot out of dry ground. He had no form or comeliness in the worldly way of thinking because there was nothing of the natural to cause worldly attraction to Him. God came to Israel as a man and they killed Him and this deicide was a crime of the utmost cosmic significance. It wasn't the riff raff of Israel that hung Christ on the cross but it but was done by the best Israel had to offer. The highest and the brightest of the religious order of the day were responsible. Israel's best. What makes Gentiles think they would have done any different? What is differnt today in man's best than the best of Isarel of that day?Why do Gentiles have to be saved from the same sins that Jews do? If God is a God that punishes iniquity until the third and fourth generation because of the earthly sins of the fathers then how large was the murder of Christ in His eyes? How far was this catastrophic sin going to be visited upon the generations to come? God knew before hand so maybe some of the prophecies of Israel's blindness, written many centuries before, is what Dr. Brown is speaking of. If God has blinded successive generations of Jews since the days of Christ it is His divine preogative to do so. "Who are you to say to God O man?" God does as He has chosen and elected to do.

9 And He said, Go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed; and see ye indeed but perceive not.

10- Make the heart of this people fat, and make thier ears heavy, and shut their eyes lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert and be healed." (Isaiah 6:10-11)

The commission Isaiah had was to go and proclaim God's word so as to purposefully cause the spiritual blindness and lack of hearing to even increase yet it was wasn't done because of a random arbitray choice suggesting divine cruelty. The former chapters in Isaiah reveal a long history of unbelief and hardness so God purposefully gave them over to seeing but not seeing and hearing but not hearing. Christ moved through Israel as a meek and humble servant and God purposefully hid the gospel in Christ's words from the children of pride. The plumb line was being dropped. To enter the kingdom of God you must come as a little child. The sealed vision of Isaiah's day (seeing but not seeing, hearing but not hearing) was at work in Christ's day.

39 For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again,

40 “He has blinded their eyes and He hardened their heart, so that they would not see with their eyes and perceive with their heart, and be converted and I heal them.”

41 - Thes things said Isaiah, when he saw his glory, and spoke of him. (John 12:39-41)

Isaiah was speaking of Christ - "when he say His glory and spoke of him." God's plan was to purposefully hide the gospel from the pride of Israel - "And He said, "To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is in parables, so that SEEING THEY MAY NOT SEE, AND HEARING THEY MAY NOT UNDERSTAND." (Luke 8:10).

Christ rejoiced that God had revealed Himself to the babes and not the mighty "intelligent" and wise. It's pride and a long history of hardening that causes deeper hardening even unto successive generations. It's this pride that instigated the enormous crime of Christ's murder. Since then the hardening has been even deeper but still only partial. One day even this hardening is to end and I advocate hands off the Jews (and modern Israel) from the church and theological world because the Jewish heart outside of Christ and grace is after all only a revelation of the heart of every man outside of God. There are no more righteous and no more stubborn than other peoples. It's just their responsibility as a peculiar chosen vessel has brought more serious consequences - to whom more is given more is required. Jewish hardness should be a cause of great grief and travail, as Paul showed, instead of what the church has ususally done over the centuries when it has proclaimed, "You had you chance and you blew it because you were so stubborn." True, but what makes us think it wasn't the absolute sure mercies of God that unhardened out hearts that were born as deep in sin as any Jewish heart? God has concluded all under sin.

If there are nearly 400 Jewish synagogues in the world today who preach and teach Christ as the Messiah then surely days of a fresh visitation of the mercies of God for the Jew is upon us. Hardened hearts are begining to see and hear and understand.


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David Winter

 2016/4/8 11:28Profile
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 Re:

Docs- thanks- very helpful.

Jeff- a plain childlike reading of the verses regarding pharaoh is that God hardened his heart. In other words God hardened his heart then punished him for his hard heartedness. If you don't see the problem with this then we are simply not on the same page. But that's ok!

The only reason I brought this up is because Dr Brown in the article was critical of Gentiles who are critical of Jews because they are stubborn. He counters this by saying it's not stubbornness of their own making but rather due to a hardening from the Lord. But I may not be understanding him correctly which is why I asked the question.

In regard to Rom 9 and election, I have probably said 100 times on the forum (not saying you knew this) that I cannot abide the concept of individual election in the sense that God elects in advance some for eternal life and others to torment. But again I don't want a debate on Calvinistic points. Not saying you are a Calvinist but as you know unconditional election is the U of tulip.


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Todd

 2016/4/8 11:56Profile





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