Post by Mpossoff on Aug 2, 2007 10:42:05 GMT -8
Not quite. Of course a Righteous Gentile has an equal standing with a Jew before HaShem. This has always been the case. However, a Righteous Gentile is still not a Jew, and therefore the inheritance of the Jews, as the firsborn of HaShem, does not transfer to the Gentiles.
Not according to Paul. In Galatians Paul tells the Gentiles “You are all sons of God through faith in Messiah Yeshua, for all of you who were baptized into Messiah have clothed yourselves with Messiah . There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Messiah Yeshua. If you belong to Messiah, then you are Abraham’s seed and thus heirs according to the promise”
The scriptural criteria for determining if one is the “Seed of Abraham” is not genetic, it is spiritual. If you belong to Messiah, then you are Abraham’s seed, and an heir according to the promise.
In Romans 11 Paul compares Israel to an olive tree. Regarding the olive tree of Israel, he writes to the Gentiles in Rome that they have been adopted into the family tree of Israel. They are adopted like wild olive branches and grafted into the olive tree of Israel. The result of this grafting in is that they have become full part of the olive tree of Israel. They are no longer Gentiles in the strict sense. In Messiah there is neither Jew or Greek, Instead both the natural decendents of Abraham and the spiritual decendents comprise the common entity of Israel.
The Mystery of the Gospel that Paul refers to is Gentile inclusion. That Gentiles are heirs together with Israel is the Mystery of the Gospel.
Paul was writing in the 1st when this was the prevailing(emphasis added) halachtic view point. Jews and only Jews were covenant members. As Jews they kept the Law() because God said so because they were trying to keep the covenant and not because of legalism. What is legalism. It’s doing works to earn salvation. This is where the church today see’s those that keep and observe the Law(). If I do XYZ God will except me might be a better description of legalism.
Paul was battling Jews who were boasting because of the thinking that we're God's Chosen and/or the Elect. Their works were done to show that they were God's covenant people and it wasn't to earn their salvation.
What was the prevailing halacha of 1st century Judaism? The prevailing view of the sages was a belief that Israel and Israel alone shared a place in the ‘World to Come’. Israel meaning Jewish only Israel. So if a non-Jew wished to enter into God’s blessings and promises such a person had to convert to Judaism first. So the entry point into covenantal membership was ethnicity.
Paul used the circumcision and the conversion is his letters often because that is what marked you outwardly as a covenant member. Most of the time Paul isn’t talking about the surgical act of circumcision he’s really talking about Jewish identity in the conversion. Which means from the view of the 1st century you could think that you were born into the covenant as a Jew because you were circumcised on the 8th day. What did you have to do gain covenat membership? Not a thing. Your parents circumcised you and God graciously birthed you into the covenant. But the gentile who wasn’t born into the covenant had to go through the circumcision to become a Jew in order to gain membership into the covenant.
If you ask the Jewish community today who has the right to keep the Law() and they’ll tell you for Jews only.
Take a vote in ‘Christianity’ they’ll tell you it’s for the Jews and they'll also say we're not under anything.
The Law is for everyone who names the Name of Jesus.
Isn’t God both the God of both Jews and Gentiles?
Paul taught that you didn’t need to change your ethnicity before God could accept you.. Paul taught that the real change that takes place in a persons life is effected by the Holy Spirit. Because of Jesus sacrificial death the sinner takes on the status of righteousness. Paul also said that conversion added nothing to those wishing to be accounted as true Israelites.
Paul thoughts were that their genuine faith in the promise Word of the Lord as evidenced by the working of the Holy Spirit was all the indentity that they would need.
Natanel based on the Brit Hadashah you seem to not 'jive with it.
It's seems to be combo of the prevailing halacha of the 1st century and the Brit Hadashah?
Eph 2:11-13
11 Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands— 12 that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
Are Gentiles NOT strangers to the covenants of promise and aliens to the commonwealth of Israel?
And yes it is certaintly a mystery. So it was indeed a mystery that the way the gentile came to faith in the One true God was in faith that the Messiah was the catalyst, (that had not happened before) and more mysterious the catalyst was by his death. And that Gentiles may remain uncircumcised Gentiles and still have equal standing before God, and a receive full inheritance as sons, with Jews.
Marc