Wednesday 18 March 2015

The Gospel isn't Anti-Semitic

I once heard an interview with Gary DeMar. I felt it was far from anti-Semitic, and it enhanced the Gospel thrillingly. So great! I can't say enough how excellently I felt it brought-out the Gospel.

I feel some others though in other circles perhaps might be taking ideas a little off track, when they have difficulty answering why Messiah must minister in Israel first, why the Gospel had to be to the Jews first. It wasn't mere happenstance: prophecy and covenant required it.  

The Apostles seemed to treat that as obvious: Messianic promises concerning Israel HAD to be fulfilled in Israel for Israelis first.

It's just that they saw the promises not as delayed but as fulfilled through Jesus and through the Gospel-scheme, in Israel first of all of necessity - and afterwards also among Gentiles.

They didn't see the need for any future scheme for Israel other than the Gospel.

But neither were they blind to the fact that it all had to start in Israel among Israelis first - for covenantal and prophetic reasons.

I think someone's in a ditch on the opposite side of the road to the ditch Dispensationalists are in, if he can't concede that at all.

So there was due process by which the offer of salvation and the emergence of the Church came about: Jews first, THEN Gentiles - it didn't bypass Israel.

I'd also add that the hope of the future coming of the Lord and resurrection seems to have continued as an integral component of the scheme of things by which the Apostles considered Messianic promises concerning Israel to have been fulfilled.

It was just that they saw Jesus - and Jesus only - as the way - as the door to that future glory. No other future scheme would be required: the Gospel wasn't a mere parenthesis. To the Apostles, the Gospel was the very scheme that had been prophesied - to Jews first, and then Gentiles afterwards also began inheriting the promises - in Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham, making one new man. But the still-future coming and resurrection is part of that Gospel-scheme.

The Gospel is the best means to salvation God had for Israel, for anyone. So anything that brings our full focus back onto the Gospel isn't anti-Semitic - the Gospel is still the best hope of all nations, including of modern Israelis.

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