Desire Of All Nations
Well-Known Member
It is not replacement theology. The Israel of God is a purely spiritual entity, which is why Paul clearly teaches in Romans that physical Israelites have to be grafted into this tree like everybody else in order to receive the promise of eternal life. Ezekel's prophecy of the dry bones concerns the time when they will be grafted into this tree. As of right now, most of them are not.Replacement theology, that claims that the church has replaced national Israel, is false.
Paul absolutely destroys the claim God has rejected and is done with the nation of The Israel:
Rom 11:1I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
Rom 11:2God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew.
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In Romans 11, Paul not only says God is not through with the nation of Israel, he wrote that gentiles who believe (the church) are GRAFTED IN to their new covenant, by faith.
In other words, the church has no covenant - the HOUSE of Israel has the new covenant - and if Christians become spiritual Israel, it’s only after being grafted in as a wild Olive Branch among the natural Olive Branches to the Olive tree of Israel, and not because they replaced the HOUSE of Israel.
Rom 11:17And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;
Rom 11:24For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree:how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?
Jesus was sent in the beginning only to the HOUSE of Israel, and told the apostles He sent out, to go not into any gentile city, but only to the Jews, and Jesus identities the National Jewish people as the HOUSE of Israel
Mat 10:5 These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into anycity of the Samaritans enter ye not:
Mat 10:6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the HOUSE of Israel.
Mat 10:7 And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
And the new covenant is to be with the HOUSE of Israel - with national Jews, not with so-called spiritual Jews:
Hebrews 8:7For if that first covenanthad been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.
Heb 8:8 For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a NEW covenant with the HOUSE of Israel and with the house of Judah:
BTW, Hebrews 9says the Jeremiah 31new covenant with the HOUSE of Israel, took effect at Jesus’ death.
And the bones Ezekiel saw come to life is the HOUSE OF Israel:
Ezekiel 37:11 Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole HOUSE of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.
More proof it’s the dry bones coming to life is about the rebirth of the nation of Israel is found on the same page:
Ezekiel 37:12 Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, AND BRING YOU INTO THE LAND OF ISRAEL
Eze 37:13 And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves,
Eze 37:14 And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, AND I SHALL PLACE YOU IN YOUR OWN LAND: then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it,and performed it,saith the LORD.
BTW the dry bones of the House of Israel came to life in 1948 when Israel became a nation again, in 1948.
It’s not spiritual Israel Jesus comes to when He returns to Mount Olive in Zechariah 14:5, and saves Jerusalem from destruction, then reigns forever from Jerusalem on the throne of David.
It’s not any so called spiritual Israel that god gathers from all over the world, back to the land God dispersed them from.
If the church has replaced Israel, then Romans 11is nonsensically saying that salvation has come to the gentile church, to make the gentile church jealous:
Rom 11:11I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.
If Christians are now Israel, then since most of Israel is in unbelief and ungodly until they see ‘ the deliver come out of Zion’, then the church is ungodly and in unbelief until the return of Jesus, and He turns them away from ungodliness. Per Romans 11.
And it’s not so called spiritual Israel that is in the new covenant Jesus now mediates, that took effect at His death per Hebrews 9, but the promised new covenant with the HOUSE of Israel and the HOUSE of Judah, per Jeremiah 31.
Hebrews 8, 9, and 10 make it very clear that the Jeremiah 31new covenant is the one that took effect when Jesus died, and Romans 11makes it very clear that salvation only came to us gentiles to make Israel jealous, and that we are the wild Olive tree branches that are grafted in among the natural branches to the Israel olive tree, with Jesus as the roots of the tree. (Their covenant).
Thus we are not so-called spiritual Israel, and have not replaced the natural branches, nor is there a church covenant, but only a House of Israel and House of Judah new covenant that we gentiles are joined to by faith.
Replacement theology is just plain wrong.
The Old Covenant was physical and given to physical Israelites. The New Covenant is spiritual and made with spiritual Israelites. It's not hard to understand that God is making a spiritual Israelite nation whose spiritual father is Abraham, just like He made a physical nation of Israelites whose physical father was Abraham. That's the idea Paul was communicating when He called the Church the "Israel of God".
The whole problem with your theology is that it overlooks the fact that Jesus divorced OT Israel as the OT God and ended that marriage contract by dying. You somehow managed to conveniently skip over all the passages where God says He was going to divorce them and only posted passages about Him making a new contract with them.