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To: topcat54

If there is no physical restoration of the Jews to Israel, how can the unfulfilled prophecies of Zechariah regarding Jerusalem and the nation of Israel ever be fulfilled? Are you saying that "spiritual" Israel (i.e., saved Christians of whatever ethnic background) are going to be living in Israel and in Jerusalem when these events happen?


I don't think so. Christians are not the "house of Judah." You are trying to rob the children of Israel of promises God made only to them.


20 posted on 08/23/2005 2:27:07 PM PDT by Cecily
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To: Cecily
If there is no physical restoration of the Jews to Israel, how can the unfulfilled prophecies of Zechariah regarding Jerusalem and the nation of Israel ever be fulfilled?

The answer is that they are fulfilled in Christ. If you read Romans 11 carefully you'll see there is no physical promise, that is, there is no promise of restoration to the land or rebuilding of the temple. The promise is that they will be regrafted into the root, that is, into Jesus Christ. "For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?" (v. 24).

The promise is that wild branches (gentiles) and natural branches (Jews) will make up one completed and restored entity. If there is a promise having to do with the physical land, etc. then it is extended to both Jews and gentiles, since that is the only way to read the passage.

Are you saying that "spiritual" Israel (i.e., saved Christians of whatever ethnic background) are going to be living in Israel and in Jerusalem when these events happen?

Again, the land is not the focus of the teaching of Jesus and the apostles. Their focus was entirely spiritual. The people of God was one, made up of Jew and gentile. "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him." (Rom. 10:12)

I don't think so. Christians are not the "house of Judah." You are trying to rob the children of Israel of promises God made only to them.

Not robbing anyone of anything. Jews find their greatest blessing when they are identified with Jesus Christ and regrafted into the root, not by inhabiting a small plot of ground in the middle east at some indeterminate and limited time in the future.

"For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith." (Rom. 4:13)

21 posted on 08/23/2005 6:01:27 PM PDT by topcat54
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