Originally posted by James_Newman:
Hebrews 3:1 Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;
I'm sorry, brother, but Hebrews is written to believers. It is easy to say 'yeah, but believing Jews' but we should know better.
You read funny Christian friend. Hebrews is written to Hebrews and not Gentiles. Hebrews 1:1-2, ”God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, 2. 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”. The prophets are to the fathers of Israel, and “us” is Hebrews.
Galatians 3:26-29
26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
The gospel of 'repent and be baptized' is the gospel of the kingdom. It is the fullness of the gospel, not the gospel for Jews. We must believe and be born again for our eternal status, then repent and be baptized for entrance into the kingdom. I don't know if there will be anyone in the kingdom who is not baptized, unless special circumstances are considered, but no man has to be baptized to be saved on the last day.
The gospel of “repent and be baptized” is the gospel of John the Baptist of the kingdom is at hand, and as you say the gospel of the kingdom promised Israel. Until John were the law and the prophets, and the message changed just as Jesus reveals in Luke 16:16, ”The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.” Hardly salvation by grace through faith, without works, wouldn’t you say? What was the gospel according to John the Baptist, and did Jesus preach the same gospel, and only to His people in His first “great commission”? Matthew 10:6-7, ”These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: 6. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Had Israel accepted Messiah before Steven was murdered, this gospel would have applied to the Gentile’s. We Gentiles had to wait until a few years after the stoning of Steven, as we see in Acts 9, and 10.
Please notice the wording. We are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. By faith the Jew comes, Romans 3:30, ”Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.” The proselyte could also come “by” faith, and all today are children of God by having faith in Christ Jesus. God never made covenant with the Gentile, so we today inherit Christ. The Jew in the days of all the Apostles (and the tribulation) now have a better covenant as shown in Hebrew’s 8:6-8, ”But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. 7. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. 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:” No heathen Gentile included in Hebrew’s.
In Galatian 3:27 we see how we are placed into the Body of Christ, and that is by coming “through” the faith of Jesus Christ, in our spiritual baptism – Colossians 2:11-12, ”In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: 12. Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.” This is OSAS as we are now in the Body of Christ, and the Jew came “by” faith, not being in His Body as they will inherit the earth.
In 28 we see today we are all in the Body of Christ, Jew and Gentile, for the Jew today is seen as we Gentile’s, just as was Abram before God chose Abraham to father His nation Israel. This was not so before Damascus Road as the Body of Christ was unknown, for God had this hidden from man. Paul states ” But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: 8. Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory”, I Corinthians 2:7-8.
Please reread Verse 29. It does not say because we are the seed of Abraham, we are heirs. It reads if we are Christ’s, then we become of Abraham’s seed. We become heirs because we are in the Body of Christ – Ephesians 3, explicitly verse 6-8, ”That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel: 7. Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power.
8. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ”.
Gal 2:15, We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles,
Gal 2:16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
The Jew had to be saved the same way anyone else did. There had to be a sacrifice. A jew could not ultimately be saved by keeping the law any more than you could.
