kate4christ03 wrote:Quote:It means that as scripture states, there will be a time,(the day of the Lord; Christ's second coming) when a remnant of the natural israel will see the Messiah coming out of the sky, recognize he is the one they pierced and they will weep with sorrow and remorse. and they will repent and God will forgive them and save them.
i am posting this again because neither of you have responded.
"THE center of the entire prophetic forecast," claims author Hal Lindsey, "is the State of Israel." (The 1980's: Countdown to Armageddon) Critical to the fundamentalists' ?'Armageddon scenario,' therefore, is their belief that God has special dealings with Israel. God, they believe, will intervene when her enemies seek to destroy her.
The Bible, however, indicates that the Jewish nation lost God's favor and protection when they rejected his Son, Jesus Christ. (Acts 3:13, 14, 19) Jesus himself plainly told them: "The kingdom of God will be taken from you and be given to a nation producing its fruits."?-Matthew 21:43.
Theologians John F. and John E. Walvoord nevertheless counter by saying: "The Apostle Paul clearly indicated that the Old Testament promises for Israel were still to be fulfilled. Paul wrote, ?'I ask then, Did God reject his people? By no means!' (Rom. 11:1; NIV.)" They fail, though, to quote the rest of that verse: "For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin."
Paul could not have believed that the Israelites as a nation still had a special place with God, for the apostle expressed "great grief and unceasing pain in [his] heart" over their unresponsiveness to God's goodness. (Romans 9:2-5) At Romans 9:6 Paul adds: "However, it is not as though the word of God [to Abraham] had failed. For not all who spring from [natural] Israel are really ?'Israel.'" Note what Paul is saying: that because the Jews rejected Christ, God no longer considered them to be Israel! The anointed congregation of Jesus Christ's followers was now the real "Israel," the instrument through which God would bless all mankind.?-1 Peter 2:9; Galatians 3:29; 6:16; Genesis 22:18.
God, though, did not reject the Jewish people as individuals, for Paul pointed out: "For I also am an Israelite." Yes, individuals within the Jewish nation, like Paul, could become part of spiritual Israel if they accepted Christ. Only "a remnant," a minority, chose to do so.?-Romans 11:1, 5.
Some, however, anticipate a dramatic change of heart on the part of all natural Jews. "The great tribulation, which will follow the rapture of the Church," claims one fundamentalist writer, "will be the means of Israel's conversion [to Christianity]." Interestingly, Paul does say at Romans 11:25, 26: "A dulling of sensibilities has happened in part to Israel until the full number of people of the nations has come in, and in this manner all Israel will be saved."
Was Paul predicting a future mass conversion of the Jews? How could that be so, since he himself indicated that only a remnant of Jews would accept Christ? (Romans 11:5) True, Paul did say that the Jews would experience a spiritual "dulling of sensibilities" until "the full number" of Gentiles came into the Christian congregation.
Greek scholar Richard Lenski shows that here the word "until" does not necessarily imply some later conversion. (Compare the use of "until" at Acts 7:17, 18 and Revelation 2:25.) Paul is actually saying that the natural Jews' sensibilities would remain ?'dull' right down to the end.
God, however, wisely completes "the full number" of spiritual Israel (144,000) by bringing believing Gentiles into the Christian congregation. "And in this manner [not by the Jewish nation's change of heart] all [spiritual] Israel will be saved."
