I've got a pretty thick skin and a great deal of patients when people actually do make arguments. I don't remember the last time you made an argument and the comment you made about Satan's deception was terrible on at least two fronts. For one thing, it was blatantly insulting but more importantly it was entirely self-defeating because since you make the accusation outside of ANY context (i.e. an actual argument) whatsoever, the exact same accusation applies as equally to your own doctrine as it would mine or anyone else's for that matter. On what basis could you reject the possibility that you aren't the one who's been deceived? Maybe Satan has deceived us all! How would you refute such an accusation? You couldn't! You couldn't do it because it has no rational connection to anything specific. It's a totally meaningless and stupendously insulting waste of time thing to even think, never mind actually say. You should actively guard you mind against such emotionalism. It's the basis upon which every cult is based.
I hear ya. I promise I will try and do a better job of re-reading my posts to make sure they come across as intended before I hit the post button.
Also, why do you break up my posts and respond with three different posts? It makes it difficult to respond. I've had to recombine our discussion into a single post on more than one occasion. You gotta stop doing that.
Ok.
Also, why do you ignore the most important parts of my posts? In my last post, I gave a very specific response in regards to Israel's Kingdom and why they didn't receive it. And your response is to continue the discussion as though I never said a word of it.
Sorry, I also skip replies to some of my important points as well. I guess I try to keep the post short so you don’t have to crunch through a lot. I will try and not do that.
When Jesus said that the Kingdom was at hand, He meant precisely that but it wasn't some invisible, undefinable, unfalsifiable fabrication that the modern church and you think it is. He meant a Kingdom - period. You know, the sort of Kingdom with a King and a thrown and political power and civil laws and a military and all the other things associated with a real Kingdom.
Jesus came and for three years He was looking for faith and couldn't find hardly any at all. He even asked the Father to cut them off before He was even crucified but the Father said that He would "fertilize" Israel and give it a year and, after that, if there is no fruit, then He would cut them off. (Luke 13).
So, Jesus ascends into Heaven and sends the Holy Spirit (Acts 2). Some time later (likely a year based on Luke 13), Israel has Stephen stoned to death and Jesus is seen standing at God's right hand (i.e. in preparation for judgment) (Acts 7). Israel is thus cut off and God turn's to the Gentiles (Acts 9).
Paul later explains the precise answer to why Israel did not receive their Kingdom and was cut off instead. Just because God promises you a Kingdom doesn't mean you can just do whatever the heck you want and He's still required to give it to you. God can and does change His mind and He is not obligated to give a Kingdom to a people who hate the King! This is what the whole chapter of Jeremiah 18 is all about and it just happens to be the very passage that Paul himself cites as the explanation for why Israel was cut off in Romans 9.
So, when you read something in the bible that doesn't seem to have come true, the key isn't to spiritualize it into meaninglessness.
I would like to address the last sentence but I know you wanted to expand on it so maybe it will come up later.
I agree Israel was cut off but I see it as fleshly Israel. I suggest that just as the law was a shadow so were the people. This is what I understand Jeremiah 18 and Romans 9 to be telling us. In Jeremiah 18 he says
“so he made it again another vessel”. I believe Israel has to be converted to a new creature to continue. Paul says the gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation and the bible tells us the gospel of Jesus Christ began with John the Baptist, Mk. 1:1. John the Baptist told Israel the time is coming that they will no longer be able to rely on the fact that they are descendants of Abraham, Lk. 3:7-8. Jesus basically told Nicodemus the same thing that he could not rely on his birth as a Jew to enter the kingdom but that he had to be born again of water and the Spirit. So in order for Israel to be saved they have to become Christian. Jesus created in himself one new man:
that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two.
He did that at the cross:
reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross.
Romans 9 tells us they are not
all Israel which are of Israel.
8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. They are not all children (heirs) because of their heritage but only those who are like Isaac. Paul tells us Christians are like Isaac, children of promise, Gal. 4.
In Romans 11 we can see not all of Israel will be saved but only a remnant will be saved.
21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? Again, out of the same lump not all children of the flesh are heirs except those who are called.
5 So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. I see that in the tree analogy in that they have to be converted and only a remnant will do that. A natural branch (Israelite) that accepted Jesus was not broken off but stayed attached. Israelites that were broken off can be grafted back in if they accept Jesus, if they do not they are lost. Gentiles that accepted Jesus were grafted in. Fleshly Israel was cut off but God has not rejected his people. Paul uses himself as an example of that. He was converted and became a Christian. They can be saved. Saved from what? Sin. I don’t see anywhere talk about being saved from the physical things of life.
I believe the church is the kingdom. Paul tells us that Christians have been transferred to Jesus’s kingdom, Col. 1:13. Jesus tells Peter he was going to build his church and give him the keys to the kingdom. In Acts 2 we see him using those keys and letting 3,000 souls in.
What doesn’t make sense to me is that if Israel didn’t receive the kingdom because they rejected their king, why then the two opposing prophecies? God tells us through Daniel’s prophecy that during the time of the Roman Empire God would set up a kingdom all the while knowing the Jews would reject Jesus and therefore it would not be set it up?
44 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.
I look forward to your comments