Brightstar,
The concept of the Church as the "New Israel" which inherits "Old Israel's" position with God is a spiritual concept. That's what Paul is talking about - the church as a spiritual Israel. I doubt you would disagree with this - note the reference in the passage you quoted to circumcision of "the heart, in the spirit". Correct me if I'm wrong.
I'm not going to debate this because it is not the point of controversy. The problem comes in from Emile's claim that this SPIRITUAL teaching makes illegitimate and unacceptably evil the PHYSICAL existence in the modern world of "Old Israel" i.e. Jews, Jewish institutions, and a Jewish country. Therefore he must post over and over and over again that Jews existing today have NO physical descent from ancient Israel, that the Jewish country in the middle east is by its very nature evil, that Jews and Jewish institutions are satanically evil and responsible for all sorts of bad things like communism, the assassination of JFK, etc., etc.
I don't think Paul's teaching which you quoted in Galations "There is neither Jew nor Greek..." means that Christians are required to deny the continued legitimate existence in the flesh of Jews as Jews anymore than they have to deny the same about Greeks or male or female. Clearly Jews, Greeks, male, and female continue to exist and retain their physical identity. Paul is asserting that the distinctions between Jews and Greeks, male and female are non-existent in a SPIRITUAL sense, not a physical sense.
To sum up, it is not necessary for Christians to deny, denigrate, oppose, or in any way have a problem with the continued physical existence in the world of "Old Israel" and/or "Old Israel's" physical descendents in order to assert their own status as spiritual descendents of Abraham.
Lastly, Brightstar, I am posting this to you because 1) you requested that someone debate his doctrine and 2) your post contained a couple of scriptural passages which I wanted to mention and 3) experience has taught me that Emile likely won't respond to a critical post unless the poster really tears into him and I want to keep this as civil as I can. (I suspect this a thought out tactic designed to make those who disagree with him appear to be driven by emotion and not reason or values.) Although addressed to you, Brightstar, this is a public post which will be read by just about everyone who monitors this thread and I welcome any response from anyone.
Bruce |
