In Thee Shall All Families of the Earth Be Blessed

[Ekklesian]

Genesis 12:3

Is this about the Jews, or about Christianity?

 

[abcaines]

To whom was it said?

 

[Baptist Renegade]

Who are "all the families of the earth?"

 

[Ransom]

Genesis 12:3

Is this about the Jews, or about Christianity?

"And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, 'In you shall all the nations be blessed.'" (Gal. 3:8)

Written by Paul under inspiration, addressed to Gentiles, explaining how God has accepted them as members of his family, the church.

 

[abcaines]

"And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, 'In you shall all the nations be blessed.'" (Gal. 3:8)

Written by Paul under inspiration, addressed to Gentiles, explaining how God has accepted them as members of his family, the church.

End of discussion.

 

[Ekklesian]

To whom was it said?

To the father of faith ( in Christ ).

 

[Ekklesian]

Who are "all the families of the earth?"

They are the nations...the goyim...which, incidentally, includes the descendants of Abraham, because when God called him, he was uncircumcised.

 

[abcaines]

To the father of faith ( in Christ ).

Ransom closed out this conversation nicely.

 

[Ekklesian]

Ransom closed out this conversation nicely.

So you agree that And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee is fulfilled in Christ and His chosen people, the church, the Christians, and not of racial or national Israel?

Welcome to the Reformed doctrine. It's only a small and logical step to Amillennialism.

 

[abcaines]

So you agree that And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee is fulfilled in Christ and His chosen people, the church, the Christians, and not of racial or national Israel?

I believe it applies to both.

It was meant for Abraham and the nation that would come from him and would hold true through the Messiah that would arise from the blessed nation.

 

[Baptist Renegade]

So you agree that And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee is fulfilled in Christ and His chosen people, the church, the Christians, and not of racial or national Israel?

Welcome to the Reformed doctrine. It's only a small and logical step to Amillennialism.

I believe that it goes far beyond the nation of Israel. When God gave the promise to Abraham, it meant that his seed would fulfill the promise he made to Adam and Eve in Gen 3:15 which would bring about the reconcilliation of his elect to himself. Israel was the means to this end.

However, you also have all of the Messianic kingdom prophecies and Jesus told us plainly that not one jot or tittle of the law shall pass till all these things be fulfilled. God cannot go back on his word and as a bible-believing Calvinist (albeit not 1689 Reformed), I have to believe that what God has decreed from the beginning, he shall bring to pass. There is and never will be a "Plan B" to God's sovereign plan.

I am therefore holding stubbornly to the historic premillennial position and a future role for Israel.

 

[Ekklesian]

However, you also have all of the Messianic kingdom prophecies and Jesus told us plainly that not one jot or tittle of the law shall pass till all these things be fulfilled.

What He said was not one little letter of the law or the prophets would pass away--not one--till all be fulfilled.

If not all is fulfilled, then the handwriting of ordinances still stands against us.

 

[biscuit1953]

Baptist Renegade was right. “When God gave the promise to Abraham, it meant that his seed would fulfill the promise he made to Adam and Eve in Gen 3:15 which would bring about the reconcilliation of his elect to himself. Israel was the means to this end.” It is through the Messiah that salvation would come to all nations, not just the nation of Israel.

Part of the Abrahamic Covenant is the land grant in Genesis 12:7; 15:8. That land isn’t promised to the Russians, Americans, Chinese, Arabs, or any other group other than the physical offspring of Abraham. Claiming the Church has replaced Israel nullifies all the unfilfilled prohecies God gave Israel as a nation.

The Reformers rightfully rejected the use of allegory to interpret Scripture yet, when it came to the prophecies concerning the Jews they spiritualized them? Jonathan Brentner explains how the practice of allegorizing Scripture began with the purpose of making Greek philosophy compatible with the Old Testament and Origen employed it to diminish the physical blessings of the millennium in order to comply with the teachings of Plato, who taught that all matter was evil.
https://www.jonathanbrentner.com/ht...21/7/5/the-unbiblical-basis-of-amillennialism

There is dark side to the Reformation period also that explains some of this teaching. One of the greatest leaders of the Reformation was Martin Luther. His attitude towards the Jews wasn’t just contempt but hatred! Why would someone who despises the Jews want to interpret the prophecies concerning the blessings to them literally when he can claim those promises for the Church?

Martin Luther: "What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews":

• “I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow ... But if we are afraid that they might harm us or our wives, children, servants, cattle, etc., ... then let us emulate the common sense of other nations such as France, Spain, Bohemia, etc., ... then eject them forever from the country …"
• Luther’s book, “On the Jews and Their Lies” during the run-up to World War II was displayed at the Nazi rallies in Nuremberg.

Is it any wonder that Jews today have such a distrust of Christianity? I don’t have as much a problem with Covenant theologians showing the similarities between the the Church and Israel as I do with them proclaiming that God is through with them as a nation and insisting that modern day Israel is not really Israel; proclaiming the miraculous regathering in 1948 and becoming a sovereign nation for the first time in 2500 years has nothing to do with Bible prophecy.

Amo 9:14-15 "I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them,” says the LORD your God."

This prophecy was not fulfilled in the Babylonian Captivity, for they were driven out of the land after that. This must be a future restoration. The return from the Babylonian Captivity was the first restoration.

Isaiah 11:11 says the Lord will set his hand the second time – not from the east but from all over the world and the islands of the sea.

Jeremiah 16:15 says God will bring them back from the north and all the lands. The march from Egypt to Canaan was not a restoration. You cannot have anything restored to you unless it has been in your possession before, and Palestine was never in possession of the children of Israel until after the conquest by Joshua.

Ezekiel 36:21-24 declares that God will take the Jews from among the heathen, gather them out of all countries, and will bring them back into their land, not for their sakes but for the His holy name’s sake “that the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.”

Charles Spurgeon said this on the Book of Zechariah, “This vision and prophecy graciously reveal the future history of Jerusalem. We may spiritualize it and say Jerusalem signifies the church, but we should not forget the literal meaning of the words. The Jewish people and their royal city will remain the center of the manifestations of divine glory. The nations of the earth will be joined to the Lord, a suburban population more than her former splendor; the Jews will be restored to their own land; and the Messiah will reign as a prince of the house of David.”

John Gill on Romans 11:26 - And so all Israel shall be saved,.... Meaning not the mystical spiritual Israel of God, consisting both of Jews and Gentiles, who shall appear to be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation, when all God's elect among the latter are gathered in, which is the sense many give into; but the people of the Jews, the generality of them, the body of that nation, called "the fulness" of them, Rom_11:12, and relates to the latter day, when a nation of them shall be born again at once; when, their number being as the sand of the sea, they shall come up out of the lands where they are dispersed, and appoint them one head, Christ, and great shall be the day of Jezreel; when they as a body, even the far greater part of them that shall be in being, shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their King; shall acknowledge Jesus to be the true Messiah, and shall look to him, believe on him, and be saved by him from wrath to come.

The one-thousand year Millennial Kingdom (Rev 20:1-6) will not come about by the church converting the world to Christ but by the personal return of Jesus Christ when He comes in glory to rule with a rod of iron.

 

[Ransom]

Who has argued on this thread that the prophecies are not literally fulfilled? Specifics, please.

 

[biscuit1953]

Who has argued on this thread that the prophecies are not literally fulfilled? Specifics, please.

Do you deny that modern day Israel has anything to do with Bible prophecy concerning the regathering of the Jews as a nation in 1948?

 

[Ransom]

Do you deny that modern day Israel has anything to do with Bible prophecy concerning the regathering of the Jews as a nation in 1948?

That doesn't answer the question I asked. If you have a point, make it, and show your work.

 

[Ransom]

I believe it applies to both.

Of course.

Galatians, again, says that those who have faith are the true heirs of the promise (Gal. 3:7). They are the heavenly Jerusalem, the son of the free woman (4:26). Paul's Jewish contemporaries would have said they were the true heirs of Abraham--not mere Gentiles, or worse, Ishmaelites. But what Paul says is that the "present Jerusalem"--that is, Judaism--is the child of the slave woman, not the free woman. They are the accursed Ishmaelites.

The promises made to Abraham are fulfilled in his "seed." Paul is very clear that the "seed" is a singular person, who is Christ (3:16). The true heirs of Abraham are those in Christ, Jew and Gentile alike. But the unbelieving Jews who have rejected their Messiah are not the heirs, and have no part in the promises, unless they repent and turn to Jesus.

 

[Ekklesian]

Baptist Renegade was right.

Yes. When he said

Jesus told us plainly that not one jot or tittle of the law shall pass till all these things be fulfilled.

Yet you both are arguing that some of the law has passed, namely the law of the sacrifices. Now no one could argue the Atonement is a mere jot or tittle.

However, we're told there was a change in the law when Christ took His place as the High Priest. It was just a jot, though. Priests are to be taken from the tribe of Levi, but Christ is of the tribe of Judah. Just a technicality, though. A mere tittle.

For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law. - Hebrews 7:12​

And yet, according to Christ, and as attested to by you and Renegade, not the smallest change could be made till all was fulfilled.

So whom should we believe? Jesu or y'all?

“When God gave the promise to Abraham, it meant that his seed would fulfill the promise he made to Adam and Eve in Gen 3:15 which would bring about the reconcilliation of his elect to himself. Israel was the means to this end.” It is through the Messiah that salvation would come to all nations, not just the nation of Israel.

I'm certain Abraham had no knowledge of Adam or Eve, or any of the Creation narrative revealed to Moses four hundred and thirty years after God's call to him. Don't confuse the prophecy given to Eve with the Promise given to Abraham. God did not enter into any covenant with Eve. She was not promised anything, and neither her seed through her. She is not the mother of the faithful. Sarah is. Galatians 4:22ff. But the seed of Abraham was promised something. And it wasn't said that Eve rejoiced to see Christ's Day, but it was said of Abraham, meaning that Abraham rejoiced to see the fulfillment of God's promise to him. The Abrahamic Covenant is something distinct from the prophecy delivered to Eve. God did not swear to Eve, but He did swear to Abraham.

And Eve was many more than four hundred and thirty years prior to the law.

Part of the Abrahamic Covenant is the land grant in Genesis 12:7; 15:8. That land isn’t promised to the Russians, Americans, Chinese, Arabs, or any other group other than the physical offspring of Abraham. Claiming the Church has replaced Israel nullifies all the unfilfilled prohecies God gave Israel as a nation.

What? Isreal didn't cross the Jordan?

[Snip irrelevant emotional appeals to hatchet jobs of extra-biblical sources.]

 

[Ekklesian]

Do you deny that modern day Israel has anything to do with Bible prophecy concerning the regathering of the Jews as a nation in 1948?

Yes. Yes, I do.

 

[biscuit1953]

That doesn't answer the question I asked. If you have a point, make it, and show your work.

We all believe the Genesis account of creation, the virgin birth of Christ, the miraculous events found in the Old Testement and in the life of our Lord when he walked the earth. We believe in the resurrection of Christ, that one day we will be raised from the grave. And yet, we see the miraculous regathering of a dispersed people who have had no country to call their own since the Babylonian Captivity clearly laid out in Scripture and all of a sudden that should be spiritualized. That is what liberal scholars and skeptics do. I look at the events of 1948 with wonder after reading of the many prophecies in the Old Testament that clearly stated what would happen in the last days and you ask me to not believe my lying eyes.

I don't claim to be infallible. I have believed many foolish things down through the years that I have had to swallow my pride and admit I was wrong. I remember the first time I came to this forum I thought you were one of the biggest heretics I had ever come across and went out of my way to prove you wrong. Believe it or not, you have had a tremendous influence on my life in the way you explained many things including Calvinism, Ruckmanism, and other subjects with great clarity. I have written down in my Bible at this moment quotations from you that I found profound. I do respect you but on this particular subject we must agree to disagree. Some subjects will never have 100% agreement.