The people of God (Main Forum)

by vynette , Brisbane, Australia, Tuesday, May 25, 2010, 08:31 (1122 days ago) @ Ian Elmer

Gosh, here I was working away on something else and I just check in to find out what's happening and, lo and behold, Ian has just made a claim with which I wholeheartedly disagree.

Ian, you said:

"The real shocking aspect of his [Luke's] story is that he also clearly wants to suggest that the advent of Christianity indicates the demise of Judaism as God’s chosen community of faith. Just as the Passover event in Exodus signalled the transition of YHWH’s favour from Egypt to Israel, so the Pentecost event in Acts signals a further definitive shift from Israel to Christianity."

The Church has always wanted us to believe this for obvious reasons.

The New Testament position is that non-Israelite followers of Jesus can be "grafted" into the tree of Israel. Through the "grace" of God, they also can partake of the covenant, the promises and the blessings.

But this teaching was accompanied by a warning to those who were grafted in. They should take heed of the fact that if the casting away of the Jew was their reconciliation, then what would the receiving of them be but life from the dead? (Rom.11:15).

This warning applies just as much today as it did then. The teaching that Christianity has somehow replaced Israel and that Christians are the new "people of God" is a gross deception.

Christianity has appropriated to itself Israel's God, Israel's Messiah, Israel's Covenant, Israel's Books and, if that were not enough, followed up by "boiling the kid in its mother's milk."

This issue is not just academic - it is fundamental.