Featured If God doesn't have a future for the Jews...

My question was why you thought that Genesis 12 and 17 should be applied to separate Jews and Gentiles in opposition to Paul’s insistence that such is a misunderstanding of the Promise (while the Jews took it to mean exactly that, Paul says that it does not). Your reply:

Yes, I do know the definition of progressive revelation. Do you? It is scripture that contains a fuller revelation of an earlier passage. Note “a fuller” revelation (not an entirely different revelation).

Yes (I attended a very pro-dispensationalism seminary). I am not asking what dispensationalists believe. I am asking YOU what YOU believe. There are dispensationalists that do not believe the Abrahamic Covenant to mean one thing in Genesis and the opposite under the New Covenant (in fact, you are the only one I’ve actually met thus far).

No. That was Scripture.

Perhaps, but that does not carry any application to this thread. Your post was that Genesis teaches the covenant was made with Abraham and to his descendant. I think that Paul’s explanation that this is to Abraham’s Seed the true children of Abraham are those who have faith in God (Gal. 3:7). But then you asked a strange question. You asked “Why does God make Jesus the descendant of Abraham? Why not just make Jesus the descendant of Shem?” My reply is that it wouldn’t matter because we’d be in the same place (we are in the same place because God did make Jesus the descendant of Shem, but his covenant was with Abraham). No matter what God did, you objection would be the same. If it were Shem, and Paul explained that the true Seed of Shem was Jesus (and the true children of Shem were believers) then you would go one more back with "why not Noah". If Noah, then you'd go back to Lamech. You'd ultimately get back to Adam. And, of course, there you would find the promise foreshadowed in Genesis 3:15.

 

How do you reconcile the idea that “Paul would see spiritual Israel as being saved Jews who are then part of the Church” with Romans 11:11-31, specifically verses 19-31?

It seems to me Paul is saying many Jews who are members of national Israel are cut off from Spiritual Israel so that Gentiles can be grafted in. If this is true, then Spiritual Israel would include those of the “wild olive tree” (Gentiles) who are grafted to a cultivated tree. And if that is true then God, while perhaps not done with Israel as a nation, has always had one people (true Israel).

 

That is what I wanted to know (what you believed). The "wall of separation" did not exist during Abraham's time (Gentiles could be converted into Israel...e.g., Rahab, who is in the linage of Christ). That said, not all dispensationalists see the covenant with Abraham to change with dispensations. It meant the same thing across dispensations (even if it was not understood at the time as such).

Please quote two early church sources that teach pre-trib.

 

Why are you choosing to take the words of these men out of their context? I will grant that these were pre-mil doctrines, but they are far from pre-trib. Your post is a dishonest rendering of the the teachings of these men. I take it this is the type of thing we can expect from you?

Here is the fuller context (what you corrupted either intentionally or out of ignorance):

Justin Martyr

“O unreasoning men! Understanding not what has been proved by all these passages, that two advents of Christ have been announced: the one, in which He is set forth as suffering, inglorious, dishonored, and crucified; but the other, in which He shall come from heaven with glory, when the man of apostasy, who speaks strange things against the Most High, shall venture to do unlawful deeds on the earth against us the Christians, who, having learned the true worship of God from the law, and the word which went forth from Jerusalem by means of the apostles of Jesus, have fled for safety to the God of Jacob and God of Israel.” – (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho)

Irenaeus

“But he indicates the number of the name now, that when this man comes we may avoid him, being aware who he is. The name, however, is suppressed, because it is not worthy of being proclaimed.” (Irenaeus, The Writings of Irenaeus Book III)

“And therefore, when in the end the church shall suddenly be caught up from this, it is said, ‘There shall be tribulation as has not been since the beginning, neither shall be,’ For this is the last context of the righteous, in which, when they overcome, they are crowned with incorruption.” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies…..and you are reading into the text “caught up” and ignoring the remainder of Irenaeus’ words….which is poor scholarship on your part).

Cyprian

“And this, as it ought always to be done by God’s servants, much more out to be done now – now that the world is collapsing and is oppressed with the tempest of mischievous ills; in order that we who see that terrible things have begun, and know that still more terrible things are imminent, may regard it as the greatest advantage to depart from it as quickly as possible. If in your dwelling the walls were shaking with age, the roofs above you were trembling, and the house, now worn out and wearied, were threatening an immediate destruction to its structure crumbling with age, would you not with all speed depart? If, when you were on a voyage, an angry and raging tempest, by the waves violently aroused, foretold the coming shipwreck, would you not quickly seek the harbor? Lo, the world is changing and passing away, and witnesses to its ruin not now by its age, but by the end of things. And do you not give God thanks, do you not congratulate yourself, that by an earlier departure you are taken away, and delivered from the shipwrecks and disasters that are imminent? We should consider, dearly beloved brethren – we should ever and anon reflect that we have renounced the world, and are in the meantime living here as guests and strangers. Let us greet the day which assigns each of us to his own home, which snatches us hence, and sets us free from the snares of the world, and restores us to paradise and the kingdom. ( Cyprian, Treatise VII: On the Mortality)

“If, therefore, we also live as dedicated and devoted to God – if we make our way over the ancient and sacred footsteps of the righteous, let us go through the same proofs of sufferings, the same testimonies of passion, considering the glory of our time the greater on this account, that while ancient examples may be numbered, yet that subsequently, when the abundance of virtue and faith was in excess, the Christian martyrs cannot be numbered, as the Apocalypse testifies and says: “After these things I beheld a great multitude, which no man could number, of every nation…And he said unto me, These are they who have come out of the great tribulation and have washed their robes…” but if the assembly of the Christian martyrs is shown and proved to be so great, let no one think it a hard or difficult thing to become a martyr, when he sees that the crowd of martyrs cannot be numbered…In persecutions, earth is shut up, but heaven is opened; Anti-Christ is threatening, but Christ is protecting; death is brought in, but immortality follows; the world is taken away from him that is slain, but paradise is set forth to him restored; the life of time is extinguished, but the life of eternity is realized. What a dignity it is, and what a security, to go gladly from hence, to depart gloriously in the midst of afflictions and tribulations; in a moment to close the eyes with which men and the world are looked upon, and at once to open them to look upon God and Christ! Of such a blessed departure how great is the swiftness! You shall be suddenly taken away from earth, to be placed in the heavenly kingdoms.” (Cyprian, The Treatises of Cyprian)

 

Those "red hearings" and "straw men" are facts that disprove YOUR statements that YOU introduced into this thread. YOU, not I, brought up pre-trib. You, not I, claimed most, if not all, early church fathers were pre-trib. YOU, not I, took the "offer one line and twist it until it fits" approach, hoping no one would notice. My reply disproved YOUR statements. You seem unable to face them so you pretend they don't exist. BUT LET"S LOOK AT HOW THIS "RED HERRING" CAME TO BE:

YOU said:

And I RESPONDED to what YOU posted by asking that you:

It is, of course, neither a straw man argument nor a red herring. It is not a straw man argument because the evidence of the denouncement is plain. All three you mentioned were not pre-trib but instead believed the church was going through the tribulation. It is not a red herring because YOU introduced the topic by YOUR claim.

Every time you are caught in a place where you cannot defend YOUR STATEMENTS you curl up and accuse others of straw man arguments and red herrings. You are that boy that cried wolf, making so many false assertions that nothing you present can be taken at face value. If you are willing to make false claims about the views of these three men, when their views are not an authority and pre-trib isn’t the thrust of the argument, then just how far will you go to support claims more central to the OP?

There is an OT expression – “gird up your loins”. Here we’d just say “man up”. Or, of course, you can just plug your ears, kick up dust, and cry "red herring! Straw man!" and hope it will conceal the error. But just remember that YOU brought the thread here by YOUR statement. I responded to YOUR error.

 

Paul does teach that the Abrahamic covenant was set up in the past. But he does not teach that this was a covenant of nationalities (of Gentiles on one side and Jews on another). The Object of this covenant is the Promise, the Seed (singular) who is indeed a Jew (to the Jew's first, and then the Gentiles). But to Abraham there was no Israel (Jacob/Israel was one of Abraham's grandchildren). Paul goes back to that covenant and declares (although you disagree) that the Seed is Christ and the children are those who believe.

I also believe that God has a purpose for Israel (as a nation) that will come to pass in the future. A belief that God has a future for Israel (as a nation) is not dependent on restricting the Abrahamic Covenant to Jacob and his descendants. Abraham was not a Jew. He was not an Israelite. Abraham was not even the "father" of the Jews (in terms of sole lineage). That would be Jacob (whom God chose and changed his name to Israel, and whose descendants are the twelve tribes of Israel).

You can't go back to Abraham and restrict that covenant to a future (to that time) people because it would exclude Abraham himself. Abraham had Isaac. God established his covenant (within the Abrahamic Covenant) with Isaac (for it is through Israel the Seed will be delivered). And God established his covenant with Jacob (Israel). Again, within the Abrahamic Covenant. But the Object of the Abrahamic Covenant is not provision for national Israel, but salvation to the world. And if you cannot understand that simple point, then you are wrong even in your dispensationalism.