Featured Israel and the Fig Tree

The Millennium is a doctrine of the Pharisees that Jesus refuted continually in the gospels. Those who say the kingdom is physical add to Jesus' words and to Revelation.

 

The Church was the Congregation of the Lord in the OT. Mentioned over 300 times. “This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us:” Acts 7:38 (KJV 1900)

Jesus abolished the physical unbelieving element in the church at Calvary, leaving only believers. Into this believing Israel he added believing gentiles.

“And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again.” Romans 11:23 (KJV 1900)

If the unbelievers are Israel, to whom are they grafted into if they believe?

 

Then John was a liar, demented, using exuberant exaggeration, or what?

How about Ezekiel? Was he also a liar, demented, using exuberant exaggeration, or what?

How about Jeremiah?

How about David, Daniel, Isaiah, ...?

JESUS Said, "My kingdom is not OF this world..." but He never said His Kingdom would not be brought TO this world in the last age, just as the Revelation clearly teaches, that everlasting kingdom that is eternal. "THY KINGDOM COME..." was the statement of Christ. NOT Thy kingdom HAS come....

You state that teaching a literal, physical return of Christ and establishment of His Kingdom is a "doctrine of the Pharisees." You are wrong. The pharisees sought no kingdom of God, they turned from the kingdom just as John 1 states.

Do you not know that there are actually more prophetic statements concerning the last age and the Kingdom established by the King of kings than there are those concerning the first advent?

But according to you, they are not a single one to be taken as factual.

"Replacement Theology" (if memory serves me) was at one time not allowed on the BB.

But with the new ownership, changes were made.

 

Designating some name to reject for a belief system, without giving a definition, is shortsighted.

Looks like The Succession of Truth, from the apostate Jewish economy and Temple Worship, innilated at the Abomination of Desolation, to the Lord's churches, primarily of Gentile populations, when Paul said, "I Turn to the Gentiles", is an unmitigated disaster of denial you may be referencing.

"And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles." Acts 13:46.

You'll say that "Israel" doesn't mean, "Israel", when Paul said, "not all Israel is Israel" and "all Israel will be Saved".

But that "Israel" means what you say "Israel" means, and probably even attach "Israel" to a Fig Tree, in Mark 13.

That's what this thread starts out doing.

Why not just leave "Israel" alone, forever, the way Jesus Did, when He Cursed The Fig Tree?

All Spiritual Israel, as the Spiritual seed of Abraham will be Spiritually Saved.

The Cursed Nation of Israel is Cursed, Forever.

 

I didn't bring up the man, you did.

He was wrong on this issue, as are you. Replacement Theology is just not Scriptural, it is heretical teaching.

Problem is that you apparently do not see that consistent with what Paul presented in Romans 11 as necessary to God's ultimate plan. God did not reject the national/political Israel, he temporarily caused them partial blindness (not total, for there are some Jews that have been redeemed in every generation), but as Romans 11 teaches, such partial blindness ENDS when the age of gentiles comes to a close. THEN, just as the OT and NT statements present, God will conform the national/political Israel. That is Paul's statement of Roman's 11 in which he warns Gentiles not to ignore in puffed up assumptions that God has rejected the national/political Israel.

God cursed ONE fig tree, but not all fig trees.

By selecting one, it is in this that you have erred.

And, as a result, you discredit vast portions of prophecy and promises made we call covenants given by God and are eternal.

 

"Replacement" whatever means what?

"Israel" in Roman's 11:26 means what?

"the Fig Tree" in Mark 13:28 means what?

 

"... the new Israel depicted in Isaiah 40–48 continued to be a struggling and weak people who needed constant exhortation to pursue obedience as well as encouragement to trust in God’s faithful love for them.

To fulfill God’s purposes, another, better Israel would be required, a servant who would take Israel’s place, doing what Israel was unable to do, fulfilling her calling to bring light to the nations (Isa. 49:6).

This servant “Israel” took flesh in the person of Jesus Christ.

From the moment of His birth, He reenacted Israel’s history, going down to Egypt so that He could be the true son whom God called out of Egypt (Matt. 2:15, quoting Hos. 11:1).

Just as Israel passed through the Red Sea, Jesus passed through the waters of baptism (Matt. 3) before being led out into the wilderness, where He successfully faced the same temptations that Israel had failed to endure (Matt. 4).

At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus read aloud Isaiah 61:1–2, declaring that the Scripture had been fulfilled in His hearers’ presence (Luke 4:18–19): He was Himself the promised Servant upon whom God’s Spirit rested.

As the new Israel, Jesus perfectly fulfilled the demands of the law.

The new covenant that Jeremiah anticipated was established in His blood (Luke 22:20).

Jesus fulfilled God’s original design for human holiness, thereby personally embodying the new Israel for which the prophets looked.

Since Jesus Christ is Himself the new Israel, all those united to Him by faith are also incorporated into the Israel of God (Gal. 6:16).

He is the true vine, the classic Old Testament image for Israel, and we are His branches (John 15).

...
Being part of this new covenant Israel is, thus, not a matter of physical descent from Abraham, but rather sharing Abraham’s repentance and faith (Luke 3:8).

The new people of God includes Jews and Gentiles together (Gal 3:28), as both are grafted into the new olive tree, Christ/ Israel (Rom. 11:17–24).

That does not mean that God has forgotten His promises to those physically descended from Abraham (Rom. 11:1).

Certainly not.

But not everyone who is descended physically from Israel is part of the new Israel (Rom. 9:6).

The restoration of Israel promised in the prophets is accomplished as the gospel is preached to Jerusalem and Judea (the southern kingdom), Samaria (the northern kingdom), and to the ends of the earth, thereby finally bringing God’s light to the Gentiles (Acts 1:8).

This is from The Church and Israel in the Old Testament by Iain Duguid

... as long as you don't 'make me believe' everything in a reference, but we ought to at least know as much as a Wetminster guy.

 

If you start with Jesus' Spiritual Kingdom, and make the OT conform to this, it alleviates the squabble he had with the Pharisees and many today who believe the Kingdom is physical and not a kingdom of faith.

 

HORSE FEATHERS !

I hope no other reader believes the trash this gent has been posting. Clearly, he's both adding & subtracting to the Revelation, in direct defiance to God's command to do neither !

 

If the 1000 years are the kingdom, why is the kingdom still here for Satan to attack after the 1000 years end?

 

Your theology sure is messed up !

According to your premise, the unbelieving Jews of today aren't Israelis!

 

They are gentiles with Jewish ethnicity. Some possibly have Abraham's DNA and might possibly be among the elect who convert to Christ.

 

Because Jesus hasn't yet returned, ushering the physical KOG here on earth. No rocket science needed !

 

MORE HORSE FEATHERS ! !

 

When God called Abraham, all of his slaves and their families became his physical covenant seed. At a time when Ishmael was his only physical blood heir. Circumcision made one his covenant seed, not blood. When Jesus abolished circumcision, nothing remained to make one a physical seed.

 

No physical kingdom. When Jesus returns, it's the end of the world by fire. And the New Heavens and earth.

 

Most of the prophets prophesied before or during the exile. Only Haggai, Zechariah & Malachi prophesied after the return. So Ezekiel was prophesying about the temple being rebuilt, which would include priests & animal sacrifices, but also looking beyond to a temple built with living stones - believers in the Messiah. The temple he describes is conditional on obedience -

Eze. 43:8 When they set their threshold by My threshold, and their doorpost by My doorpost, with a wall between them and Me, they defiled My holy name by the abominations which they committed; therefore I have consumed them in My anger. 9 Now let them put their harlotry and the carcasses of their kings far away from Me, and I will dwell in their midst forever.
10 “Son of man, describe the temple to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; and let them measure the pattern. 11 And if they are ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the design of the temple and its arrangement, its exits and its entrances, its entire design and all its ordinances, all its forms and all its laws. Write it down in their sight, so that they may keep its whole design and all its ordinances, and perform them. ​

It is clear from the post exile writings that the returnees were not faithful. We need therefore to understand that the true temple comprises the living stones.

..... Thine IS the kingdom, the power & the glory, for ever & ever. Amen.

The Gospels are not explicit about the Pharisees' expectation of the KoG, however it is reasonable to understand them as having an expectation of a carnal, earthly kingdom.

I suggest you mean "not a single one to be taken as carnal" rather than "factual." Spiritual understanding sees Jesus factually, presently as King of kings & Lord of lords.

In the "kingdom parables" it is evident that the KoG is present & that all sorts of people, good & evil, are presently in it. -

Mat. 13:41 The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, 42 and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!​

 

What the European, Ashkenazi Jews call themselves is not relevant. They are in rebellion against Father & Son. The nation that calls itself "Israel" is certainly NOT a godly kingdom or nation, but practices the sins condemned by the prophets, & by Jesus & his Apostles.

Whether some of them are physical descendants is not relevant. All genealogy records were destroyed in AD 70. Remember what John told them?

Luke 1:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, 9 and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. 10 And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
​

They are, of course, under the Gospel, & are welcomed when they repent on an individual basis.

 

MORE HORSE FEATHERS ! !

 

The Jews of today are descended from the Jews of yesterday, simple as THAT! To think they're anything but Jews is horse feathers.

The proof? Their history! No one denies that the pre-70 AD population of Jerusalem was mostly jewish, and there were many other Jewish ciries, towns, & villages in those days. While a large number of jews were killed in the siege & destruction of J, they were certainly not exterminated, & those who called themselves Jews afterwards were Jews as well. After Hadrian booted them outta Judea in 135-136 AD, they underwent severe persecution & hatred wherever they went, for some 1800 years, culminating in the nazi holocaust. After that, God caused them to have their own sovereign nation again, in defiance of all human odds. No other people ever underwent the persecution they did, & remained a distinct people, regaining their nation again in their own land God gave them.

And no, they're NOT godly today, most of them still rejecting Messiah, still believing the Old Covenant is still in effect, planning to build a new temple in Jerusalem & resume animal sacrifices, which they'll do in the future. And God has said He will forcefully show them the truth of the Gospel & save ALL ISRAEL, not just the Jews.
But , of course, any Jew can come to Jesus, same as anyone else, & will be "grafted in" to the KOG all-the-more-readily.