Tuesday, November 7, 2017

There are people out there arguing that Salvation is only for a certian Race

I shouldn't have to bother responding to these people.  But Racism is on the rise right now.

Even in the Torah and the Hebrew Bible salvation was not limited to Blood descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Leviticus 19 teaches that the stranger that shall dwell among you shall be treated as if he was born among you.  And again, Circumcision was clearly also allowed for foreigners.

There are people who combine their British Israelism and Two House theology to teach that the "Gentiles" of the New Testament were only the outcasts of the Northern Kingdom, the "Lost Tribes".  Now the main website I'm responding to is White Supremacist, but much of the same logic could be applied to Black Israelite or Asian Israelite theories.  I believe the "Lost Tribes" were scattered to all four corners of the Earth, so some truth exists to each of those theories.

What's dangerous is they do make a valid point about "Gentile" not exclusively meaning only non Israelites, since the same Hebrew and Greek words also get translated Nation and are used of the Nation of Israel.  So I need to refute them in a way not dependent on the mere use of that word.

Their main article on this subject quotes only one verse of Romans 11, verse 17.
"And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;"
And they then said "Clearly only an olive tree can be grafted into an Olive Tree" so they can say the branches being grafted in are the same ones that fell off, even though that is totally incompatible with what Paul said.

Romans 11:24 destroys their desire to use natural science in interpreting this as it clearly says.
"For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?"
In the Greek, "contrary to Nature" is the same as "Against Nature" in Romans 1:26-27.  Thus part of the theme of Paul refuting the people who agreed with that rhetorical rant by showing God does something "Against Nature' therefore "Against Nature" can't be inherently wrong.

They also have an article against using the word Seed in a spiritual sense, yet did not actually quote Galatians 3 and 4, where Paul's point is clearly about people not naturally Abraham's Seed becoming Abraham's Seed.

But I can also cite Isaiah 53.  If you're a Christian you know the Suffering Servant is Jesus, Acts 8 and 1 Peter both quote it as such.  And unless you're a Mormon you don't think Jesus had any children by natural biological reproduction.  But Isaiah 53:10 says the Suffering Servant will have Seed.  Psalm 45 also says The Messiah and The Bride will have children.

In Revelation 12, The Woman is Israel (all 12 Tribes represented), The Man-Child is the New Testament Church, separate from those is....
the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
So clearly, there is a lot of Seed here.

The statement in John about Jesus coming "Only to the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel" needs to be understood in the context of John 1.  He came unto His own, and His  own received Him not, so He gave unto others the ability to become Sons of God.

In the training mission Jesus sent The Twelve on during His ministry, that mission was given only to Israelites, since the New Covenant wasn't quite made yet, as Jesus Blood wasn't Shed yet.  In the context of that mission we see the Samaritans are not counted as Israelites, agreeing with the narrative of 2 Kings 17.  But when we get to the true Great Commission in Acts, there the Samaritans are blatantly included, as are Syrians (He may have said Aram in Hebrew) and the Whole World.  And then Acts 8 brings The Gospel to Samaria.

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