Jabin said:

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You're confused and interweaving two different issues. One is salvation, the other is God's specific temporal promises to the physical descendants of Abraham and to the nation of Israel.

God's promises of returning the nation of Israel and restoring the promised land to it are made numerous times throughout the OT. You can't just write those out of the Bible.

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There is no such thing as a "nation" in the modern sense in the scriptures. Nation as a modern sense like, a group of people with a government and a territory, is extremely anachronistic. Nation means people, tribe, group. The nation of Israel is the people of Israel, so when the promises are spoken to that entity, that IS the entity St Paul and St Peter are identifying as including the faithful gentiles. That's why St Paul can include gentiles with himself when he says "our fathers" speaking of the Exodus in 1 Cor 10.

Zobel said:

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There is no such thing as a "nation" in the modern sense in the scriptures. Nation as a modern sense like, a group of people with a government and a territory, is extremely anachronistic. Nation means people, tribe, group. The nation of Israel is the people of Israel, so when the promises are spoken to that entity, that IS the entity St Paul and St Peter are identifying as including the faithful gentiles. That's why St Paul can include gentiles with himself when he says "our fathers" speaking of the Exodus in 1 Cor 10.

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Yes, I know full well what the ancient meaning of nation was. I'm relying on the ancient and Biblical use of the word. God set peoples, tribes, and groups apart and gave them specific land. One very specific group that God singled out and gave very defined land to was the people, tribe and group known as Israel or the Hebrews. A very good argument can be made that neither the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Romans, the Germans, the Muslims, nor any other person or group has the power to override God's gift to that people group.

But you make this huge, unsupported leap from the definition of nation, including the nation of Israel, to including the gentiles. Yes, gentiles can be grafted into the nation of Israel as believers, but then they become the nation of Israel, joint heirs with Israel. Perhaps one day we Christians will also be called to return to the land of Israel. I've never thought about that and it's outside the scope of this discussion.

The mixed multitude of the OT had to become part of the nation of Israel in order to join in the promises. As aliens who believed, they did not remain in their own countries and inherit. Caleb, Uriah, and the others all joined the Israelites and became Israelites.

Paul was in no way saying that God's promises to Israel no longer applied.

it's a bit more fascinating than that. God took all the nations, 70, and set them apart at the tower of Babel. Israel is not one of those nations. God did not single out a nation, He created one from nothing. He repeats a phrase to the prophets over and over, "so that you will know I am YHWH". This is one of those things. Creating a nation from nothing is a testament to who He Is, He who causes things to be. He didn't just grab a nation and say I choose you. He created it.

So we have to say - how did that happen? It began with a single man, then a single son of promise, then went through the younger son, then through Joseph to Egypt. They were the Sons of Israel, who was alive, then the people of Israel who were enslaved - the Hebrews. Then they leave - and the scriptures say God is going to make a distinction with the last plague. Before that, plagues had been falling by geography, and not on Goshen where the people of Israel were. But in the last plague, the Lord says that nothing will happen to the people of Israel. How are they distinguished? By hereditary blood? No! The ones who were the people of Israel were those who were obedient - who took the lamb, ate it, and put the blood on the doorposts. The people of Israel were the ones who did so; the Egyptians were the ones who did not. And when Pharaoh tells them to go, a mixed multitude goes with them. The people who left Egypt - including the mixed multitude - were led by the pillar and the cloud. These exact people were those who St Paul tells the Corinthian gentiles they are their fathers (1 Cor 10). He sees those gentiles as part of the same peopled who came out of Egypt. Ultimately the formation of the people of Israel is culminated at Pentecost, in the covenant of blood. Passover and Pentecost are the two pillars. And the scriptures are crystal clear that gentiles, people not descended from Jacob, were among those who became Israel.

As for grafting in. Yes. Gentiles are grafted in, and become part of Israel -- "All Israel" is the specific term St Paul uses. But in both St Paul's writings and in Acts, it is clear they do NOT become Judaeans or Sons of Israel. St Paul in many ways, but one clear example is not having the gentiles be circumcised, while insisting on it for Judaean (Timothy). Combined with St Paul's insistence that he never abrogated the Law, nor taught those if Israel to not follow the law. Foreigners could not participate in Passover, ONLY sons of Israel (ex 12:43-51). Yet St Paul is clear that the uncircumcised gentile Christians do participate in the Passover in Christ (1 Cor 5:7). The only way to understand these gentiles being of Israel and not under the Law is that they are not Sons of Israel.

At the Council of Jerusalem the Apostles see this the same way. They strictly apply the Torah - the Holiness Code of Leviticus - to the gentiles coming to Christ. In the Torah there are commands said to the sons of Israel, and commands said to all the people dwelling in the land or among the sons of Israel. The Apostles applied the commands to the residents to the gentiles, but not the commands said to the sons of Israel. So the gentile Christians are explicitly part of the people of Israel, but they are also not Israel according to the flesh, or sons of Israel, or Judaeans. Hence the Judaizer's understanding in Acts 15:5 is understood (if they're Israel they must follow the Law) but also rejected.

I never said any promises did not apply to Israel. I said that the promises that apply to Israel are to the Qahal Israel, the congregation of Israel proper, the assembled people of God. These are those whom the covenant at Sinai were made. And that same concept, the qahal, is the ecclesial or assembled people of God in the NT. No promises ended, stopped applying, or changed. They always applied to Israel, and that never was determined by who your mother was. Israel were those faithful, marked by following the Torah and this was shown par excellence in circumcision and participation in the Passover. And, for gentiles who are grafted in, not as Israelites but as gentile Christians, their identity as people is retained and transformed. So in the end, all 70 nations are saved, become grafted on to Israel, become part of Israel, but not sons of Israel -- yet part of the people of God and sons of God, as it says in Hosea.

The promise of Israel is make a new nation to save all the nations, and this is exactly what happens. All Israel saves the whole world. That's what Romans 11 says. "God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all."

One thing I've noticed about you, Zobel, is that the weaker your argument is, the more words you use. When you've got the goods, you are succinct and on point. When you don't have 'em, you seem to try to hide it with obfuscation and rambling discourses that cover every topic except the one under discussion.

What in that word salad had anything to do with our ongoing discussion on the two threads? I'm not sure that I disagree with anything you wrote (although I have to admit that I didn't have the self-discipline to force myself to read either post thoroughly).

And good night. I may or may not continue this discussion tomorrow if you choose to reply again.

And if you don't know what to say you or have no response you say I'm obfuscating. You made several points mainly around gentiles becoming part of Israel. I answered them.

Read the last two paragraphs.

Very possible.

Zobel said:

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And if you don't know what to say you or have no response you say I'm obfuscating. You made several points mainly around gentiles becoming part of Israel. I answered them.

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We've gotten far afield from the original topic of this post and that topic, IIRC, is whether the Jews have any right to return to Canaan and, if so, what happens to the Palestinians.

So the question remains: what happened to the promises of God to restore Israel to the land he gave it? Whether people become members of "Israel" because of their lineage or whether that membership is based on individual beliefs, God promised the land to Israel. Was that merely a spiritual allegory of some sort, or did God mean his words literally?

If so, doesn't that make somewhat irrelevant the issue you're trying to hammer?

it depends on which promise you're talking about. He also told them the consequences for faithlessness, which was to be vomited out of the land.

For example the quote in the OP … the last days are now, the messianic age. That's why the NT authors speak of "these last days". The gentiles are the Israel who returned.

Quote:

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The gentiles are the Israel who returned.

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What gentiles?

Are you suggesting that the non-Jewish people in Israel in 1947 were God's fulfillment of his promises and prophecies?

I'm taking specifically about the prophecy in Hosea the OP quoted.

People over simplify the issue. These verses serve both a clear warning to gentiles who think they have replaced/assumed the entire identity of "Israelite" and it proves the original Israelites will come to faith and be restored.

"Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean! Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, "Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in." That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you."
Romans 11:12-21 ESV

To see this elsewhere in Biblical parables I would point you first to Jacob. Rachel was who he loved and labored for. But instead reviewed Leah. Rachel being tbe Israelites and Leah being tbe church. Jacob also received Rachael but she didn't not conceive until Leah had for 7 years.

The next parable is the prodigal son. The church is the son who stays home and doesn't waste his inheritance. The Jews are the son who have wasted was initially given to them. The law and prophets and promises of God. However they finally realize their error and return to the Father.

Word of caution is to the Christians not to begrudge or be little or make the Jews into heathens like the son did in the story. He was filled with bitterness towards the repentant son. Let that and Romans 11 be a word of caution.

Can you explain why you think Egypt is a solution?

Yeah, but Romans 11 is not about Jews or Judaeans. It's about Israel. They're not the same thing, and St Paul does not use them interchangeably. The faithful people of God are Israel, and the gentiles coming in from the nations into which the lost tribes were scattered are the remnants of Israel. That's why he says the gentiles coming in is the way All Israel is restored - the remnants of the lost tribes, plus the faithful from Judaea.

God's people are Israel, not the Judaeans.

I would like somewhere tropical and not a desert.

swimmerbabe11 said:

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I would like somewhere tropical and not a desert.

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We're sorta tropical here in Florida (Space Coast). Y'all can all be my neighbors.

While Florida is basically a different country, unless it literally becomes Xanth, I don't think it qualifies for the relocation plan the way the OP is describing

Then you are left with the conundrum who was cut off and will be grafted in?

"For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree."
Romans 11:24 ESV

I don't really care to devolve in this debate but you're over simplifying the power of God. Like I mentioned above. Jacob has two wives. The rich father has two sons. There are more etc etc.

Im not over simplifying the power of God. There's nothing mundane or boring about the mystery revealed in the restoration of Israel from the gentiles as repeatedly foretold in the prophets.

Does your interpretation of chapter 11 answer the question I posed?

swimmerbabe11 said:

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While Florida is basically a different country, unless it literally becomes Xanth, I don't think it qualifies for the relocation plan the way the OP is describing

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NERD!

The natural branches that were not spared, and cut off, are spoken of in the past tense because of their past unbelief. He is not taking about the Judaeans of his day. "a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in and in this way all Israel will be saved,"

How will all Israel be saved? By the fullness of the gentiles coming in. Not in addition to it, but in that way.

And who are the natural branches who were cut off being grafted BACK in?

Israel according to the flesh, which includes Judah but exceeds it.

And if the Bible is specifically mentioning that group (according to their flesh) as being grafted back in then it stands to reason God would have provisions for that group of people. IE land perhaps???

Israel according to the flesh is not the same thing as Israel. There's a reason St. Paul makes the distinction.

Caleb was not part of Israel according to the flesh. Did the promise of the land exclude him?

Agree with you. Two different groups. But it's clear God has a plan for Israel tbe flesh to be grafted back in. And if so it stands to reason that plan also includes land. And maybe even the land that was promised to their biological father Abraham.

I don't agree that the promises are made to Israel according to the flesh. The promises were made to Israel, and those promises are explicitly extended to the gentiles in the NT.

Zobel said:

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I don't agree that the promises are made to Israel according to the flesh. The promises were made to Israel, and those promises are explicitly extended to the gentiles in the NT.

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Well I disagree and I guess we'll find out some day.

Scripture should govern, not opinions. The people who came out of Egypt are said to be the fathers of the Corinthians. Christ inherits all the promises, and we are co-heirs with Him. St Paul says we are children of the promise.

It does govern. I use scripture. Like the one I posted that clearly shows flesh Israelites being grafted back in. And if they're is a distinction between flesh Israelites and non flesh Israelites grafted in then we shouldn't ignore the scriptures making a distinction.