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25 results for “Israel's promises”
Clear searchFulfilment in Christ, the inclusion of the Gentiles, and Israel's future mercy
Does the New Testament Reaffirm Israel's Promises? Fulfilment in Christ, the inclusion of the Gentiles, and Israel's future mercy The Old Testament repeatedly promises Israel preservation, regathering, cleansing, the kingdom of Dav…
Read article →What 'yea and Amen' in Christ means for Israel and the covenants
Do All God's Promises Transfer to the Church? What "yea and Amen" in Christ means for Israel and the covenants Paul makes one of the most comprehensive statements about the promises of God: "For all the…
Read article →What God's faithfulness to Israel means for everyone who trusts His promises
No Shadow of Turning What God's faithfulness to Israel means for everyone who trusts His promises This series has examined covenants, prophecies, apostles, thrones, tribes, branches, seeds, kingdoms, and the difficult words upon which the debate turns. We have tried to hear the…
Read article →Why Israel's failure cannot make the word of God fail
…y rebelled and, when Messiah came, the nation did not receive Him. What happens to divine promises when their recipients prove unfaithful? Scripture does not answer by minimising Israel's sin. Nor does it conclude that God's purpose must be transferred to a more deserving people.…
Read article →Conditional blessing, irrevocable promise, and fulfilment in Christ
…ds partly upon a distinction Scripture itself makes. Not every covenant contains the same promises or places the same obligations upon its recipients. The Mosaic covenant made Israel's enjoyment of blessing in the land conditional upon obedience. The promises to Abraham and David…
Read article →One Messiah, one gospel, and God's continuing purpose for Israel
The Unshaken Truth of God's Promises One Messiah, one gospel, and God's continuing purpose for Israel This series began with a question: has the Church permanently replaced Israel in the purpose of God? The answer cann…
Read article →The olive tree, the natural branches, and the limits of the metaphor
…addresses the problem created by Israel's unbelief. If Israel received the covenants and promises, how can so many Israelites reject Messiah while Gentiles receive the gospel? Has God's word failed? Has God cast away His people? Paul answers both questions with "God forbid" (Rom…
Read article →Regathering, national rebirth, and the spiritual renewal still to come
…y. It does force an important question: how should we read the many passages in which God promises to preserve Israel as a nation, gather its scattered people, restore them to the land, cleanse them, pour out His Spirit, and bring them under Messiah? The biblical pattern is not m…
Read article →Israel's Messiah, Israel's Scriptures, and a gospel for the world
…That priority was covenantal, not racial favouritism. Israel had received the covenants, promises, temple service, and messianic hope. The King came first to the people whose prophets had announced Him. The title "Son of David" carried that history. Crowds used it when appealing…
Read article →A sign of Israel's renewal, not Israel's disappearance
…tself establishes less than either side sometimes claims. Read within Jesus' ministry and promises, however, it points towards renewal rather than erasure. Twelve means Israel Israel's twelve-tribe identity runs through the biblical story. Jacob's twelve sons became the heads of…
Read article →Christ the promised Seed, Gentile inheritance, and Paul's final blessing
…f the strongest arguments for identifying the Church as Israel. First, Paul says that the promises were made to Abraham and his singular Seed, Christ. Everyone who belongs to Christ is then called Abraham's seed and an heir according to the promise (Galatians 3:16, 29). If Christ…
Read article →The question reaches beyond prophecy to the faithfulness of God
…may prefer words such as fulfilled, transformed, or expanded. They believe that Israel's promises have reached their true meaning in Christ and now belong to the multinational Church. Others maintain that Jewish and Gentile believers are one in Christ while national Israel still…
Read article →The wicked husbandmen, the fruit-bearing nation, and what Jesus said afterwards
…herefore an abstract denunciation of Jewish ethnicity. Nor is it a declaration that God's promises had always belonged spiritually to a different people. It is a polemic against identifiable rulers at a decisive moment in Israel's history. The consequences nevertheless reach beyo…
Read article →Election within Abraham's family, the believing remnant, and the future of the nation
…t test case. God had foreknown Israel, called the nation, entrusted it with covenants and promises, and set His love upon the fathers. Yet much of Israel now stood in unbelief. If that history simply ended in permanent rejection, how secure could anyone be in the declared purpose…
Read article →Unity in Christ and distinction in God's purpose
…do believers possess in Christ?" It does not by itself answer, "Will God fulfil national promises made to Israel?" Israel existed before the Church Israel's national history begins with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, develops through the exodus and Sinai, receives a kingdom under Da…
Read article →Why the final seven is unfinished, future, and centred upon Israel and Jerusalem
…spective of faith. God's continuing purpose for Israel therefore magnifies rather than compromises His faithfulness. If His covenant promises can be dissolved by human failure or transferred without remainder, no recipient of grace has grounds for confidence. Romans 11 instead ho…
Read article →Responding to five common criticisms without defending what Scripture does not require
…progressive revelation, the distinct identities named in the text, and the unconditional promises God made to Israel. It affirms one way of salvation by grace through faith, centred in Christ. It distinguishes Israel and the Church without teaching two gospels or two redeemers.…
Read article →The gathering of the elect, one taken and one left, and Paul's revealed mystery
…of a great trumpet and the return of scattered Israelites (Isaiah 27:12-13). Deuteronomy promises that God will gather His dispersed people "from the outmost parts of heaven" (Deuteronomy 30:3-4). The wording provides a natural Old Testament background for Matthew's gathering fr…
Read article →Circumcision of the heart and the identity of Paul's inward Jew
…the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked." —Deuteronomy 10:16 The same book promises a future divine work in Israel: "And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, t…
Read article →A history of interpretation, polemic, and forgotten tension
…t Jewish people. Other evidence complicates the story. Writers who spiritualised Israel's promises could still expect a future Jewish conversion. Some anticipated a rebuilt Jewish temple and a final crisis centred upon Jerusalem. Early Christian thought was not a single system. T…
Read article →Why the Trinity is not polytheism—and why Christians confess one God
…e Son prays to the Father, is loved by the Father before the foundation of the world, and promises that the Father will send “another Comforter” (John 14:16; 17:24). Their relations are real, not a drama performed for human observers. The Son shares the divine identity John opens…
Read article →Defining the position before testing it
…el no longer possesses a distinct future in the fulfilment of the biblical covenants. The promises reach their final meaning in Christ and the Church; any future conversion of Jewish people is their entrance into the Church, not the restoration of Israel as a nation with a distin…
Read article →Earth-dwellers, heaven-dwellers, and the literary structure of the Apocalypse
…r candlesticks, examines their doctrine and conduct, warns them, comforts them, and gives promises to the overcomer. "Church" or "churches" appears repeatedly because these assemblies are the stated earthly audience. The final promise to Philadelphia is especially relevant: "Beca…
Read article →A forensic reading of Christ's Olivet Discourse
…ting remains the organising centre. Clue seven: the gathering echoes Israel's restoration promises Matthew's gathering language has important Old Testament parallels. Moses told Israel: "If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy…
Read article →The positive argument of the whole series, brought together
…escribes an hour coming upon the whole world to test "them that dwell upon the earth" and promises Philadelphia, "I also will keep thee from the hour" (Revelation 3:10). The earth-dwellers form a consistent moral company throughout the book: they rejoice over God's slain witnesse…
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