If God blinded Israel why did Jesus accuse them of rejecting him, "I would, you wouldn't"???
Jesus accused Israel of "closing their eyes/ears/hearts" to his message.
Was Jesus's offer against the "will of God"??
It seems to me that if you would give even a little thought to the question I have asked, maybe just look up a few verses, then you wouldn’t have even asked that question. But I'll continue to answer your questions: No. Jesus’ offer of salvation to the Jews was not contrary to the will of God, it
was the will of God.
The situation the Jews were in is that Jesus was nothing like what they had thought the Messiah would be like, and Jesus did nothing like what they thought the Messiah would do, and nothing turned out quite the way they had thought the Messiah’s coming would turn out. Their expectations were all about a literal messianic kingdom, based on a very literal interpretation of the Old Testament, an interpretation which proved to be a real stumbling block to them. The Jew was/is therefore in the same position as Gentiles, of having to accept that Jesus is the Messiah by faith, without all the proofs the Rabbis had taught them to expect, all those earthly blessings the Rabbis taught would accompany the coming of the Messiah. It is these very same literal, earthy proofs . . . or rather, the
lack of them, that keeps so many Jews from being saved to this very day. Their own interpretation of the Old Testament has turned out to be the source of their blindness to the Cross of Christ. And that same blindness still remains on the vast majority of Jews. Even in our own day there is only a remnant of the Jewish people who follow Christ. Bottom line, the Cross was actually quite revolutionary to the Jews of Jesus’ day, and to many of those who are still blinded by their vision of what the Messiah’s coming and kingdom is supposed to mean, the Cross of Christ has become anathema. But what is worse is that so many Christians are becoming subject to the same blindness, and for the same reason . . . reading the Word of God according to the letter, rather than the spirit. So that even Christians are beginning to envision a literal kingdom that is in truth nothing more than a reestablishment of the Old Covenant and the reinstitution of the Law, including the sacrificial system . . . in effect denying the New Covenant which Scripture clearly teaches fulfilled and replaced the Old.
You won't understand the situation until you understand that an "Alternate outcome" was "possible".
If you refer to an alternate outcome to the Cross, I quite disagree. Although we might speak of it being possible theoretically, in terms of reality, God was in control all along and everything that happened came to pass exactly as God had ordained. The Jews were blinded by God for that very purpose, and only those whose hearts turn to the Lord, in faith, without the evidence of their eyes, will have their blindness lifted.
“But if the (Old Covenant) ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, be glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: How shall not the (New Covenant) ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of death be glory, much more much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of that glory which excelleth. For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remainth is glorious. See then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: and not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same inage from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 3:7-18
And a second witness:
“What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for, but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear) unto this day. And David said, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumbling block, and a recompense unto them: Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their backs always.” Romans 11:7-10
The “table of the Lord” refers literally to the common communal table in one of the Priests chambers of the Temple at which the priests on duty took their meals of various portions of all the offerings and sacrifices which God had provided in the Law for their maintenance so that His priests might serve Him with gladness. In keeping with truth being stranger than fiction, the Lord’s Table, or the communal table where the priests ate during their service in the Temple, was a banquet feast, with abundant roasts of lamb and beef and breads and cheeses and a sampling of all the various grains and vegetables that were offered with portions of wine and water from the drink offerings. These stores were plundered by the Zealots shortly before the siege of Jerusalem and was marked by the Rabbis as one of the signs that the Temple was doomed. But in symbolic language, the “table of the Lord” referred in a broader sense to all those things which God provided in the Law of Moses for the life and fellowship of His people, so that in this verse where Paul quotes Psalm 69:22 he uses it as an allegorical reference to these provisions of the Law having become a trap and a snare that blinded the Jews so that they might be bowed down under the weight of the yoke of the Law for ever.
But for those Jews whose hearts turn in faith to the Lord by the preaching of the Gospel, the vail is taken away and they too see what is the true glory of the Messiah and His Kingdom . . . the Cross.
At least, that’s the situation as I see it.
In Christ,
Pilgrimer
