Is It Nothing to You?

[JD731]

Yes. I am a 'true Jew', born from Jerusalem above Galatians 4:26, with a circumcised heart with the law written upon it Romans 2:29, Romans 2:13-15, of the 'true circumcision' Philippians 3:3, of the new creature 'the Israel of God' Galatians 6:15-16.

I am 'Abraham's seed' Galatians 3:29.

No you are not! That is just pure silliness. The gentiles were grafted in after Israel rejected and crucified their Messiah, Jesus, and refused his rule over them. This did not make the gentiles Jews, or Israel, or Jacob, or the circumcision. Neither did it make the Jewish remnant who believed the gospel and were saved gentiles. Those of you who do not bother to read should examine the gospels accounts once again and find that Jesus Christ came preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God to Israel only. I know you fellows are famous for inserting yourselves in certain passages as though the gospel writers was speaking about you, but that is called eisegesis and ignoring context. Jesus Christ is establishing his rule over Israel after the model presented by Moses when God led them as a nation out of Egypt. He chose 12 apostles to whom he will make the heads over the 12 tribes of Israel and he chose 70 elders in Luke 10 to assist in the judgements of Israel. Jesus himself would be in the office as Moses and lead Israel.

The break is in Matthew 10-12 where Israel through her leaders was guilty of an unpardonable sin and it was after this that Jesus would take away the offer of the kingdom to this generation and judicially blind them with the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, which are 12, and the kingdom described in 7 parables, beginning to end in Mat 13. There is no more preaching of the gospel of the kingdom until this age is over. It would be impossible for Jesus to rule over the Jews when they are plotting to put him to death. His kingdom is by invitation and his citizens are established before his kingdom is established physically.

Jesus Christ described this in his temple confrontations with the Jews in the last week of his ministry on earth through parables and this age is outlined in them. Consider this one;

Luke 12:11 And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear.

12 He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country 9Heaven) to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return.
acts 2:34 For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, 35 Until I make thy foes thy footstool.

A stewardship

13 And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come.
14 But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us.
15 And it came to pass, that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be called unto him, to whom he had given the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading.
16 Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds.
17 And he said unto him, Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities.
18 And the second came, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds.
19 And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over five cities.
20 And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin:
21 For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow.
22 And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow:
23 Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury?
24 And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds.
25 (And they said unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds)
26 For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.
27 But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.

Matt 19:27 Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?
28 And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

There are few religious people alive today who believes the words of Jesus in these verses above.

 

[kyredneck]

Give us 'your take' on the "Israel of God", where neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, in this passage.

Expound on it please.

Salvation is not a matter of circumcision or uncircumcision.

Salvation is not the topic. The Israel of God is the topic, and this Israel of God is a 'new creature', where neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision:

15 For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.
16 And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. Gal 6

...new creature as in:

14 For he is our peace, who made both one, and brake down the middle wall of partition,
15 having abolished in the flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; that he might create in himself of the two one new man, so making peace;
16 and might reconcile them both in one body unto God through the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: Eph 2

...new creature as in:

16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice: and they shall become one flock, one shepherd. Jn 10

 

[kyredneck]

No you are not! That is just pure silliness.

Yes I am! This I know because my Bible tells me so!

 

[JD731]

Give us 'your take' on the "Israel of God", where neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, in this passage.

Expound on it please.

These "gentiles" to whom the 12 apostles were sent in the area outlined by the dwelling place of "strangers" were largely those who are described by Hosea in his chapter 1. These include the ten tribes that God brought judgement upon and refused them as his people, yet he promised that he would one day receive them as "sons" of God. This will require a new birth because this in the only way one can become a son of God. This could not have occurred before the cross of Jesus Christ where he dealt with the sin problem.

Peter wrote his two letters to the "strangers scattered through these provinces in the area of Asia Minor. James wrote to the 12 tribes scattered abroad. Can you imagine calling natives on their own land strangers? God had reckoned all these as gentiles but there were many synagogues in this area. The Israel of God are those who are born again. I suggest a study of Isaiah and Hosea, contemporaries, and what God says about these "gentiles" in Romans 9. There is structure and logic and reason in the scriptures but the student of the book must be saved and he must believe the words.

This area is the location of the ministry of Paul's first missionary journey.

 

[JD731]

Yes I am! This I know because my Bible tells me so!

It does not. Israel is reckoned dead by God and the evidence through these years from 70 AD is that the nation is buried in the graveyard of the gentile nations. They are totally separated from all their customs and traditions and their temple where God meets with them. Separation is the meaning of death in the scriptures.

If you want to be dead, then be Israel.

13 For I speak to you Gentiles , inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:
14 If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.
15 For if the casting away of them (Israel in context) be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them (Israel) be, but life from the dead?

This is a promise that Israel will at some point be raised from the dead and there is no promise that gentiles will become Israel. There is a fullness of gentiles ahead, not a fullness of Israel.

Stop and think and reason. You have been duped by your teachers and you have desired it to be so.

 

[CJP69]

Re

No, it’s not an overstatement. It’s truth. The Son was God before He was in Mary’s womb, but He was not flesh (man) before then.

He remained God because He was already God. She did not bring forth God, as in procreating God. In fact, the Lord Jesus created everything. She brought forth the pre-existing God, in the flesh, the man. God cannot die—the Lord Jesus died. How? Because He willingly laid aside His prerogatives and became a man (Philippians 2). I did not say He “quit” being God. He is always God but God did not always have a human body (“A body Thou hast prepared Me”).

Sin came by man. Therefore, salvation also came by man, because God took on human flesh and died and resurrected as a man.

Repeating your position doesn't count as an argument or rebuttal.

God did die or you are still in your sin! It is precisely the fact that the God who is of infinite value died that makes His death a just payment for the sins of all mankind. As a mere man, his death would have paid for another man's life but not the entire race.

That's argument number two that I've presented. Please don't bore me with another repetition of your doctrine. Instead, be interesting and make an argument.

 

[CJP69]

If almighty God died, then everything would cease to exist.

Because you say so?

There is nothing Biblical nor Christian in your claim that God Himself was killed, that God Himself died.

That's only more or less the entire point of not only the specific book of John but of the entire Christian faith.

It was Jesus' flawless human body in which He had established a perfect righteousness to be imputed to all of God's elect, chosen before the world began, that died on the cross and rose again on the third day.

His flawless human body would not have been a just propitiation for the sin of more than one flawed human body. It would not have even been sufficient to pay the price for even one other person's eternal soul, never mind that of the entire sin debt of Adam's race.

 

[CJP69]

The hypostatic union is the term used to describe how God the Son, Jesus Christ, took on a human nature, yet remained fully God at the same time. Jesus always had been God (John 8:58, 10:30), but at the incarnation Jesus became a human being (John 1:14). The addition of the human nature to the divine nature is Jesus, the God-man. This is the hypostatic union, Jesus Christ, one Person, fully God and fully man.

Jesus’ two natures, human and divine, are inseparable.

In summary, the hypostatic union teaches that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine, that there is no mixture or dilution of either nature, and that He is one united Person, forever.

Given your agreement with the above major points, on what basis do you claim that only part of Jesus died? How is your position that only Christ's humanity died not in contradiction to the claim that "Jesus’ two natures, human and divine, are inseparable."?

 

[CJP69]

You are impossible to communicate with.

Good bye.

 

[KenH]

Because you say so?

Do you think that God has an autopilot button He could just push?

Your comments in this thread lead me to ask you a couple of questions:

1) Do you believe in the Three-One God - three persons yet one in substance in the Godhead - God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit?

2) Based on your not belief that if God died, then the creation could just keep rocking right along, are you a Deist?

 

[KenH]

His flawless human body would not have been a just propitiation for the sin of more than one flawed human body

Christ's flawless, sinless human body was joined with His divine nature.

Surely you don't believe that the divine nature can die. There is absolutely nothing Biblical about such an idea.

 

[Silverhair]

That physical promise was fulfilled long ago:

1 Kings 4:20-21 Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking, and making merry. And Solomon reigned over all kingdoms from the river unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt: they brought presents, and served Solomon all the days of his life.

God teaches in His Word, the Bible, that the Bible is ALL about the salvation that Christ Jesus accomplished on behalf of God's elect - from Genesis through Revelation. It is not about a patch of dirt next to the Mediterranean Sea, except for the purpose during a period of time when it was a means that God used to bring His Son into the world in a perfectly flawless, sinless human body to work out a perfect righteousness, a perfect salvation, on behalf of all those(Jews and Gentiles) whom God the Father gave to God the Son to be their Surety before the world began, and who the Holy Spirit regenerates to spiritual life in Christ Jesus.

A better term than "replacement theology" is fulfillment theology - as ALL of God's promises from Genesis through Revelation have been fulfilled to save ALL of God's elect who ever and will ever live.

No actually a better term for you to use is "God does not keep His covenants theology" if we can not trust God to keep the promises made to Abraham then how can we trust Him to keep any of His promises?

 

[CJP69]

Do you think that God has an autopilot button He could just push?

The universe would only cease to exist if God ceased to exist, which is not what it means to die, by the way.

Further, it was God the Son who died, not the entire Triune Godhead.

Your comments in this thread lead me to ask you a couple of questions:

1) Do you believe in the Three-One God - three persons yet one in substance in the Godhead - God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit?

Of course. Anyone who denies it is not a Christian or, at best, is one in name only.

What is it about what I've said that would make you question that I believe in the Trinity?

2) Based on your not belief that if God died, then the creation could just keep rocking right along, are you a Deist?

WHAT?

NO!!!

As I said above, the universe would only cease to exist if God ceased to exist, which is not what it means to die!

And it was only God the Son who died, not the entire Godhead!

 

[KenH]

if we can not trust God to keep the promises made to Abraham then how can we trust Him to keep any of His promises?

The Bible states that God kept His promise to Abraham - both as to how far Israel extended its rule under Solomon and with the birth of Christ and His accomplished a finished salvation for all of God's elect(Jews and Gentiles):

1 Kings 4:20-21 Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking, and making merry. And Solomon reigned over all kingdoms from the river unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt: they brought presents, and served Solomon all the days of his life.

Galatians 3:8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.

Galatians 3:16 Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.

 

[CJP69]

Christ's flawless, sinless human body was joined with His divine nature.

Surely you don't believe that the divine nature can die. There is absolutely nothing Biblical about such an idea.

Have you read my posts?

God the Son was separated from God the Father, as Jesus Himself lamented on the cross. This is what it means to die, Ken!

You're a Calvinist and not even you believe that when, according to your doctrine of original sin, that men are born spiritually dead, that this means that they are spiritually non-existent, that they're bodies with no soul or spirit. To be spiritually dead simply means to be separated from God, who is both Spirit and Life.

In no case, whether righteous or otherwise, whether God or man (or both) does anyone ever cease to exist - period.

Jesus, while He was dead, did not ascend to the Father but rather went to the place that He called "Paradise" and that is elsewhere called "Abraham's Bosom" which was the place that the righteous dead went to prior to Christ's death on the cross, which paid the price that allowed them to reunited with God. People no longer go to Abraham's bosom precisely because we are post Calvary and there is no longer any need for such a place. Now, for those who believe, to be absent from the body (physically dead) is to be present with the Lord.

John 11:26 And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.

 

[KenH]

Further, it was God the Son who died, not the entire Triune Godhead.

Again, you have a problem with your idea, as God the Son is the one who upholds all of creation:

Hebrews 1:1-3 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.

(emphasis mine)

And once again, your verbiage makes me wonder if you are a Deist.

What is it about what I've said that would make you question that I believe in the Trinity?

You write like you think one of the divine Three-One can actually die.

And it was only God the Son who died, not the entire Godhead!

God the Son in His human nature died, not in His divine nature.

 

[CJP69]

Again, you have a problem with your idea as God the Son is the one who upholds all of creation:

Hebrews 1:1-3 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.

(emphasis mine)

First of all, we all already know that the emphasis was yours.

Secondly, He was only dead for three days and there isn't anything that the Son does that the Father cannot.

And once again, your verbiage makes me wonder if you are a Deist.

Why do you say things that you know are false? You do not wonder any such thing!

You write like you think one of the divine Three-One can actually die.

One did!

That's the gospel upon which your soul depends.

God the Son in His human nature died, not in His divine nature.

The two are not separable and this ignores what it means to die and at least half of everything I've said up to this point, which is par for the course on this website and for which you are the poster child.

 

[KenH]

@CJP69 When Christ Jesus died on the cross, at that point do you believe that there were only two members of the Godhead still in existence, still sovereignly ruling over creation, until Christ Jesus arose from the dead, and then there were three members of the Godhead again?

To be dead is to cease to have life - when our bodies die, they cease to have life. When Adam, as the representative of the human race, sinned, he died spiritually; he ceased to have spiritual life, which became the case for all those whom he represented.

When Christ Jesus' human body died, He still existed as divine almighty God. Only His human body ceased to have life for a period of time until His human body was resurrected.

 

[Silverhair]

The Bible states that God kept His promise to Abraham - both as to how far Israel extended its rule under Solomon and with the birth of Christ and His accomplished a finished salvation for all of God's elect(Jews and Gentiles):

1 Kings 4:20-21 Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking, and making merry. And Solomon reigned over all kingdoms from the river unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt: they brought presents, and served Solomon all the days of his life.

Galatians 3:8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.

Galatians 3:16 Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.

The Remnant of Israel
Rom 11:1 I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
Rom 11:2 God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?
Rom 11:3 "Lord, THEY HAVE KILLED YOUR PROPHETS, THEY HAVE TORN DOWN YOUR ALTARS, AND I ALONE AM LEFT, AND THEY ARE SEEKING MY LIFE."
Rom 11:4 But what is the divine response to him? "I HAVE KEPT for Myself SEVEN THOUSAND MEN WHO HAVE NOT BOWED THE KNEE TO BAAL."
Rom 11:5 In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God's gracious choice.

The Mystery of Israel's Salvation
Rom 11:25 For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in;
Rom 11:26 and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, "THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB."
Rom 11:27 "THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS."

So Israel has not be replaced by the church but I am sure you will continue in your misunderstanding of the covenants of God.

 

[KenH]

Secondly, He was only dead for three days and there isn't anything that the Son does that the Father cannot.

Are you saying that for three days that Christ was not ruling as He was before and after? I certainly hope you don't believe such unBiblical nonsense.

Why do you say things that you know are false? You do not wonder any such thing!

How would you know if I wonder or not?

1 Corinthians 2:11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?

One did!

Only in His human nature, not His divine nature.

The two are not separable

Yes, they are. The divine nature CANNOT die. Anyone that believes that the divine nature can die is in serious heresy.