THE CHURCH HISTORY OF THE FIRST
SIXTEEN CENTURIES
One may be curious to know the long and complicated story of the church, how it survived with the scripture for sixteen centuries.
In this context we have to understand the early challenges to scripture, with an appeal to scripture and tradition. The church remained close with the Christian community during the second and third centuries. The scripture also sustained the church, with prayers and holiness.
It enabled the early Christians to give proper response to all questions and other attacks, time and again.
Scripture remained relevant, as important sermons and commentaries based on scripture, expanded the heart of normal theological life of the church in the early centuries. If we study about the early church as the scripture reading community, we can correctly understand what the early church and Christianity was all about. To think about the scripture was like an appeal to a structural and detailed study of what may be called the renewed study of Jewish view of God, the world and the humankind.
This can be undoubtedly demonstrated in many detailed statements. To say with broad outlook, the claim is to be rooted in Israel’s story and recreation through the death and resurrection of Israel’s Messiah. The claim of some writers, their scriptural basis and appeal led to the emphasis on the historical nature of the church. And more stress was put on the continuity from Jesus to their own and the continuity of the people of Abraham, transformed through Jesus the Messiah, but still obedient to the same world transforming call.
But recent writings have claimed fresh ideas of familiar challenges. Some recent efforts have been made to discover alternative models of early Christianity and suggest that other texts were excluded from the mainstream. The nature of early Christian living came from the late protestant church, then an apparent
159 The Church History Of The First Sixteen Centuries early catholic position and partly from late modern eagerness from religions of self-discovery against that of redemption.
People sometimes suggest that the process of canonization is the sign the church itself was the final authority.
This proposal was made sometime back byCatholics who followed the tradition and claimed supremacy over the Bible from early days, sometimes by post modern scripture asserting that the canon itself and the books included in it were all part of a power play for control within the church and social responsibility in the world. Those who transmit, collect and distribute were not in the same league as those who write it in the first place.
Such proposals appear to be not important to remember them historically despite the enthusiastic adversary in some quarters. All such things represent themselves in other forms. The canonization of the scripture, both Jewish and Christian, was made more complicated by less than perfectness of man. In respect to canonization, it was never simply a matter of choice of particular books on “who is in” and “who is out” basis. It is certainly a long process, a matter of setting out a larger story, a narrative framework that makes sense, and brings order to God’s world and people.
All of us should remember one important thing in this context. As a matter of understanding the early history about the Bible, reading church members were burnt alive, thrown to the lions, persecuted or tortured and killed. Readers of the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul etc may find in them, a kind of spirituality generated by people like Thomas. Similar books did not worry the Roman imperial authorities. Sometimes it is said that the canonical books unlike those found in other collections, were written as a way of making early Christians more respectable, socially and culturally.
“Irenaeus” returned to “Lyons” as bishop after his predecessor had been martyred along with many other Christians in 177AD. But this new bishop became a staunch opponent of the theology found in “Thomas”. His writings were abundantly clear. It was canonical scripture that sustained the early church in its
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The Redemption Plan of God energetic mission and its commitments that surprised the alert pagan world to radical holiness.
As time passed, it became difficult to control and maintain Jewish churches on spiritual matters. After a few centuries, the loss of Israel’s importance in the understanding of churches and scripture and the men of spiritual authority, all became detached from the narrative context and completely isolated from the gift and goal of the kingdom. During that critical period, many theologians like Augustine remained passionately committed to God’s work. They tried their best to bring people to faith, to holiness and to salvation.
At the same time, we miss some of the developing traditions, the dynamic notions of scripture as the vehicle of God’s kingdom coming to birth in the world. God is at work powerfully through scripture about His kingdom by calling and shaping a covenant people by making, some of them even good teachers and preachers. The most prominent aspect of the scripture is, it came to be regarded as a “Court of appeal” - the source book or book of rules from which doctrines or ethics” might be deducted for “Lectio Divina,” the presence in which individual readers could hear God personally speak to them,and nourish their own spirituality and devotion.
If we study carefully what happened during the third century AD, some theologians like”Origen” preferred “allegory” as the proper means of understanding the Bible. But to our surprise this allegory was already in use as a weapon in writing during the first century by a Jewish philosopher and a statesman “Phillo” who lived in Alexandria, similar to Origen. The meaning of “allegory” is “at its heart reveals the surface text as a code through which the hidden meaning may be discerned”. And it appears to be partly used in some of the parables of Jesus Christ.
The apocalyptic incidents in “Daniel” and some other books of the Old Testament, explained allegorically within the text themselves. Apostle Paul used some allegorical statements of the Old Testament in books like Galatians 4:21-
31. We can also find allegory in 1 Peter 3:20-22.
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The best-known example of subsequent allegorical reading of the scripture is the spectacular, erotic love poem we all know as “the song of songs”. There is an allegory of love between Christ and the church in parallel with Jewish reading about the love between “Yahweh” and Israel.
So far we have studied some highlights of the allegorical expressions and notable incidents from the scripture, primarily the Old Testament. And some problematic issues were also explained from the scripture. There are some shocking stories with allegory from the Old Testament.
Then regarding the New Testament and the allegorical writers, we have to support them because they followed the footprints of the contemporary writers in every point of view. But it appears they were not aware the Bible contained and was flooded with more examples and dogmatic teachings.
Some writers did not realize that scripture offered many instances of the wickedness of human beings. In this context we can bring to our minds how God dealt with the stiff necked and stone hearted Israel in the wilderness by the wanderings for forty remarkable years.
One such example is Judah’s conviction of incest with Tamar (Genesis38) and the arrogant behavior in his proposal to sell Joseph into slavery,as well as his humble submission to remain as a slave to Joseph in place of Benjamin when Joseph was in a high position under the Pharaoh. Joseph was sold as a slave but God was with him and blessed him abundantly at every stage. He finally entered the royal palace and occupied the highest position next to Pharaoh in Egypt.
We have another pathetic story of the Levite’s concubine (Judges19), which was not intended to teach morals to the readers. It was only the writers repeated argument regarding the terrible life people lived at that time. We may find many more examples of that kind. The adulterous life of King David with Bathsheba then the inhuman rape of Tamar by Ammon King’s son (2 Samuel 13) and then Absalom’s rebellion and David’s disgrace are noteworthy.
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The Redemption Plan of God
The above-mentioned stories that contain some morality, hardly improve the moral standards of the Bible readers because they are not cozy. But still such stories need not be read allegorically due to their powerful theological point. And in the second grade level, the writers of allegory did not show any interest to depict anymore characters from the Bible. There are a few more instances to understand the ways in which the Christian reading of the Old Testament that involved both community and dis-community.
Allegory would claim in one sense, as the way of “saving the Bible for the church,” which means it must be other readings of the strategies at that time as passages with low taste, which might be found in the Old Testament. And the allegorical readers always conducted their exegies within the framework of the early Christian’s rule of faith. It also gave their thinking, a Christian narrative shape. But this allegorical exegies always ran the risk of concluding a great deal,in a more fundamental level by encouraging people to see the Bible in a distorted way. At this point we can understand that allegory was one symptom of a move away from the scriptural narrative itself. But it was not the way of saying that one has to believe every single incident or point in the scripture in order to be saved.
As a matter of fact it provided a state of limitations that, only scripture is to be taught as nothing to believe, to be saved from sin. On the other hand it gave basic support, as a great truth was taught from the scripture, which was the way of salvation. Those people, who were entrusted the work of teaching in the church, have no right to use the office to teach anything else.
Then,in course of time, some reformers came forward and set the scripture against traditions of the church. Apart from that, the lush growth of other three senses and the right of ordinary Christians to read scripture for their own self, was partly disturbed because of the protection of the sacred text by the Latin reading elite. They did so, because the church had gotten away from the right track, and the living God has been trying to get the scripture, back into His fold.
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As a matter of fact, our scripture was not just a resource to be brought into, or to knock down a particular idea from it. It was explained faithfully with due attention paid to the central New Testament, with more emphasis on the Cross and Resurrection of Christ. This eventually became a turning point in all history, and happened only once, never to repeat to each mass. We must believe whole-heartedly, that God’s word would work in us afresh again and again in our minds and hearts. It is appropriate to mention two great reformers, namely Martin Luther of Germany and William Tyndale of England. Both of them exercised everlasting influence and won the flood of popularity not only from the Christian world for their achievements, but also from their own language speaking people in subsequent centuries.
The reformers tried to regard non-Biblical traditions as a separate authoritative source, and quoted some passages, (Mark 7:8), where Christ happened to castigate the ‘Scribes’ and ‘Pharisees for placing human tradition against “Divine command”.
Those people regularly opposed the church “fathers”, and demonstrated their own interpretations. Some of the reformers like John Calvin were originally outstanding commentators who pleaded against the subtle and fanciful readings generated from within the worldviewas that of the medieval church. But the reformers never advanced beyond their limits in the polarization of scripture and traditions.
Then, the council of “Trent” called by Rome to answer the reformers charges and proposals, wanted to work on the question on scripture and traditions. And this remained as a part of Roman Catholic doctrine and catechizes to this day. In such atmosphere the second Vatican council four hundred years later, seized the scripture and tradition flow from the same Divine wellspring, to merge into a unity and move towards the same goal. We are in fact using the same word, and the authority has changed its meaning in the present day society. So if we refer such matters to the authority for justice, for both the reformers and opponents, there may not be possibility of proper justice.
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It appears that we may find something vital when we study about reformers and scripture. While they were discussing details in the scripture, they paid little attention towards the narration of God, Israel, Jesus.The world was coming forward into our own day and looking ahead to the eventual renewal of all things. It may be true. Their insistence on the once and for all, the name of Jesus Christ and his sacrificial death are rooted in what we call today a sense of “eschatology”. Reformers do not appear to have gone very far towards allowing this genuinely Biblical insight to work its way.
For example, reading of the gospel by them showed little awareness of anything other than that of dominical teaching with the saving events of ‘Good Friday’ and ‘Easter’, but without integrating such events into the kingdom proclamation that followed them. The most important point we have to understand with a glance here in the sixteenth century, is that the reformers were insisting on the authority of scripture, which made many important points but left many more things to public for discussion.
If the reformers were to come and address us today, they would not say that we understand it. According to them, we must follow their exegies, theology and implement it precisely as it stands, but they would say we must follow their method, read and study scripture for its worth. And the scripture would work in the minds of people in the churches. They would not be surprised at all as we come up with certain issues and theological and practical purposes and proposals. They would rather encourage us whole heartedly to go back where scripture led, using all the tools available to us being prepared and challenged by all human traditions including reformation traditions themselves, because we must say the scripture encouraged us to do so like that.
If we are asked to be careful about the use of the word “literal”, and if we move back from modern period to the sixteenth century, it is the same as true if not truer, including the words “reason” and “rationalism”. Those words have actually a complicated history that which we cannot examine for the present. But there are some controversies when reasons failed in the sixteenth century and continued to rumble, and affect the way in which people discuss authority in our times.
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At the end of second century,Tertullian once asked the concerned authorities what has “Athens to do with Jerusalem?” or what has unaided philosophical reason to do with the revelation of God in Jesus Christ?”
“Thomas Aquinas” established great synthesis along with the theology of “high middle ages”. Different scholars continued their debates regarding belief in certain things including the existence of God, which anybody could know or understand with unaided human reason. People could know by themselves about God and other things with out any benefits of special revelation given in scripture and tradition. But all those things remained as enormously important to Thomas Aquinas.
A question was put here again how much people could know without special revelation, burnt into flames again in the early reformation, with Martin Luther angrily confirming “Erasmus” regarding whether human beings would have understanding capacity of grasping the gospels.
The parallel was between the reformation doctrine of justification by faith, and the knowledge of God through special revelation, rather than nature. Human capacity continued to be more important at different levels. But the question was not at all positively resolved in the first generation of reformation.
In England particularly, human nature became worse. It caused headache and gave scope for more controversies during the first half of the century. The puritan movement was also at its peak during that time which wanted to bring some kind of Calvinism into England. At the same time it has been argued amicably by the people at Scotland that scripture alone has complete authority to implement the customs and ceremonies into the minds of people of church and tradition.
Another well noted man, Richard Hooker, (1554-1600 AD), expounded a theory, which strongly emphasized the basic reformation doctrines such as justification by faith, which looked back in other ways to Aquinas, and holistic medieval world-view. He was of the opinion that all reality would be governed by natural law. He saw the puritans were following a single agenda. He advocated
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The Redemption Plan of God that human society would change and develop from time to time and the church would also provide great help to the human society.Many methods had been introduced by the governing church at that time and one of those might be changed and developed as well.
Hooker, in his argument insisted on reason, and said it was not the way of understanding the scripture. Then the community itself was based on scripture, which could have wonderful and suitable history behind it. After gaining good experience, the community knowingly or unknowingly could never commit any blunder and move forward, as if it was in the dark, but with confidence, hope, and faith marched ahead with the light of the Son of God. All these salient points are given to the society and to the church by our scripture in harmony with natural law that came from the creator Almighty God in the first place.
There are many ironic expressions in the reformation. And it was the puritan emphasis on the right of individual interpretations of scripture, which paved the way regarding the elements of Godly devotion. But it was removed along with highhandedecclesial authority.
Due to that rational thinking among churchgoers from eighteenth century onwards it was insisted that one should be the master of one’s own fate and the captain of one’s own soul. He could be guided by human reason alone and finally cut loose from the teachings of scripture and church.
However, Hooker must have been shocked at the information and for him “reason” was part of total natural order, which paved the way towards God, who revealed Himself in Jesus Christ completely. Whoever goes through the information given above would certainly come to a conclusion that the following famous reformers like Martin Luther, Richard Hooker and Thomas Aquinas made wonderful changes for the betterment of the church through scripture and society during their life time.
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REPLACEMENT THEOLOGY
Teaching in churches, it seems replaced Israel and therefore there is no future for them according to prophecy. And some scholars called this replacement theology. After the ministry of Jesus Christ and resurrection, the apostles presented the Gospel messages in the first century at different places. But the teachings of Jesus Christ and the messages of apostles were bluntly refused by both Jews and Israelites. Then God become angry and allowed Jerusalem to be attacked and destroyed by the Roman emperors is 70 AD(Titus) and again in 134 AD by Hadrian.
At last Israel was finished without any recognition or importance. The prophesies that spoke about Israel were yet to be fulfilled. According to replacement theology, God does not show any interest in preserving the nation of Israel and about their future. It appears God is willing to show greater interest toward the people of other nations. It is not clearly indicated whether Jewish people can believe in Christ and be saved as individuals. But one thing is clearly pointed out by some commentators that there is no future salvation to Jews and Israelites. Therefore, all these prophesies about the Jews speak about church only and they will be fulfilled in the church itself. So, this replacement theology has its own positive results.
Basing on this information “Loraine Boettner” in his widely read seminaries book advocating post millennialism after thousand years that Christ will return ceremoniously to receive His kingdom, after conversion of the whole world and its thousand years piety . But the Jews no longer occupy a place of special favour in the divine plan. That does not mean God has cast them out of His sight. Nothing has taken away from the Jews as individuals. It seems only the external forms have been abolished from them.
And the Jews at the same time, forfeited the rights as a chosen nation or to be more clear after God had completed. His purpose with the Jews as a separate race, they would be continued to have the privileges of full and free salvation
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The Redemption Plan of God individually. If we study carefully Loraine Boetlnar and about some other free thinkers who were in the same line of thinking coincided in the same type of opinions explained that the Jews individually or from any group or nation, one day or other can except Christ as their personal savior and become part of the universal church. Even then all of them have negative opinion regarding the re gathering of the Jews. In the year 1948, May 8th, the formation of independent Israel Nation came in to being by the British government. If we look into the recent established Israel nation it appeared to have highhanded nation toward the Arab population, who have been trying to expand their kingdom further into the surrounding regions. Those Jews were not at all giving any moral or legal support to the neighboring countries like Palestine than any other country in the world.
But, it seems the author of replacement theology Dr.Gary.Y.Cohen was not happy at the comment of Loraine Bortlner regarding Jewish people. He said Boettner did not know much about the political conditions of Israel, during the last fifty years. The League of Nations voted in favour of separate states for both Israel and Palestine. At the same time west Bank was given to Jordan. Soon after that partition, Israel tried to re establish itself. But immediately after the partition the neighboring Arab nations like, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and some other countries jointly attacked Israel. Their main purpose was to destroy that country, kill all people and wipe out the nation from the world map.
In 1967 again, the same Egypt, Syria and Jordan attacked Israel with the same intention, according to the writer, Boettner perhaps did not remember all these important issues. The third time Egypt and Syria attacked Israel and this time it was saved providentially by God. Keeping all these things in our minds we can come to a conclusion that the impression of Boettner and his saying about Israel, as they were ruthlessly displeased an Arab population seems to be far from truth.
It was more surprising that Turkey also a non- Arab ruled country kept Palestine under its control from the time of crusaders, that is 12th and 13th
169 Replacement Theology centuries till the 1st world war. The word crusade was derived from “cross”. During 1150 to 1914, the Muslim Seljuk Turks and then Ottoman Turks ruled for about 400 years, and owned Palestine completely under their control, until they were driven out by the British Military General “Allemby” at the time of the 1st world war. The Turks slaughtered many people as they were leaving Palestine and never to return nor claim the land.
So, there was a beautiful saying among people in those days which become very popular. It was like this, the first world war left the land without people and the second world war left people without land. And these people displaced the European Jews also. We can presume at that time God’s providence was at work and it had been providing the necessary help to the Jews because they were His chosen people. In this context let us consider the valuable contribution made by two stalwarts named Augustine and Martin Luther.
Augustine: Augustine was called hero of Christian faith. But Dr. Gary Y. Cohen was not happy with the remarks made by Augustine about Israel. He might have made the remarks against Israel basing on the period in which he lived. He was very famous for his Biblical and historical information. To know the full details of the historical events mentioned by him, we must go back to the fourth century. Both Augustine and Martin Luther were the heroes of Christian faith. Augustine was undoubtedly correct in his statement about Israel because his impressions might have been attributed to the period in which he lived.
Augustine was the Bishop of Hippo in North Africa in the fifth century. He was considered to be the greatest Christian after the apostles for first five centuries and his writings appeared as the seminal ideas of Christian theology. When Romans were in full control of their empire about three hundred years back from the time of Jesus Christ they happened to drive away many Jews out of Jerusalem into the remote parts of their kingdom apart from killing many. Only a remnant of them remained in entire Israel. Augustine felt very much for that condition and said even that limited number of Jews could not accept Jesus as their Messiah.
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So, according to him, the time of Jews as the chosen people of God came to an end. As they were set aside, the next chosen people of God shall be the Christians. That was his opinion. It was the time of violent political upheavals, and no one was dare enough to talk about this small country Israel. At the same time Christian church was debating Trinitarian and Christological means, heresies eschatology of the study of last things not any body’s understanding. There is some truth in the remarks of Augustine, when he said, Christians who believed in Christ are the real Christians of God, who redeemed them. The Jews who believed in Christ in one or two generations, would lose their identity as Jews, and they too become the members of the universal church. And this change would no way hinder the eternal promises of God toward Israel.
Martin Luther – Protestant Reformation : He was called hero of Protestant Reformation and the basic Biblical doctrine of “justification by faith”. His period was (1483 – 1546). In the beginning he showed some favour to the Jews, but as time went on, he became impatient toward them for their peculiar behavior and finally turned against them. Martin Luther some how exhibited his hostility toward Jews in his writings. But Gary Cohen felt very much for the remarks of Martin Luther against Jews and said Luther was left to the judgment of God for writing something against God’s people, the Jews.
If we look into the history, we never come across a single protestant Christian just one thousand years back in the world. And if we read some of the letters, we will certainly admire him for his love, kind heart and for his brilliant approach. Above all he was a true Christian. During his time, the Barbarians attacked the Roman empire, which was in its down fall at that time. And Christianity was also at its waning condition. But it so happened providentially many of the Germaine and Slavonic tribes under the sound of Gospel became Christians.
Luther was undoubtedly an outspoken man. He was very courageous while talking about important issues. If we look into the commentary on ‘Galatians” we can understand the basic Biblical doctrine of justification by faith.
171 Replacement Theology His courage, and outspokenness could be found in his launching of Protestant Reformation. And what he spoke in his time became today a basis for modern Evangelism. We must remember how his brilliant Biblical teachings about salvation brought a large “Crowd” to “Wittenberg” in his time. This was a wonderful mobilization and finally paved the way to launch Protestant Reformation.
Luther believed his Biblical teachings might convert at least some Jews into his fold. But his plan worked adversely. So he became impatient and turned against the Jews. He finally rattled against the Pope and his sacraments. He even attacked the Catholic Church with his ninety five doctrines, which he nailed them to the church door. Even today every year October 31st is considered and observed as Martin Luther’s day among the Lutheran churches.
Whether he was right or wrong in his attacking Catholics or Jews, he was accountable before the judgment of God. His comments or words became ammunition to those people who hated Jews like himself. Luther actually tried to be amicable with the Jews but it was misfired. That’s why he became wild and turned against them.
What he spoke about Jews was like Proto Nazi. His comments appeared to be better than as part of a tradition of medieval Christian and Semitism had social and cultural basis for modern (anti-Semitism) which is based on Pseudo – scientific ideas concerning the race. These notions of race compelled Adolf Hitler the dictator of Germany during the second world war, who imprisoned and killed finally Six Million Jews (sixty lakhs) brutally.
During the first two centuries many Jews opposed Christianity as they opposed Gentiles. It was quite contrary to the prophetic scripture and vehemently pointed out the Bible readers. Those who opposed the prophetic scripture had an impression that God had totally and finally rejected all the Jews and Israel forever.
Apostle Paul started his first Missionary journey to Antioch in Presidia in Turkey and preached in synagogues. The people who attended the meeting
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The Redemption Plan of God partly accepted Jesus as their savior and some others rejected Him. His wonderful preaching made the congregation into groups. Then majority of Jews and some other religious leaders followed Paul and Barnabas. They wholeheartedly encouraged both of them to continue their preaching in the grace of God. The response for Paul’s meeting was amazing on the next Sabbath day, and all enjoyed well that day’s preaching to their hearts content. Paul mobilized the entire city.
Even then there were some Jews who did not like Jesus. Those people felt jealous of that huge gathering and spoke ill of them. Some Christian churches in china, Africa and some other parts of the world, thought that the entire world be converted into Christianity at the end of Nineteenth Century. Probably there would be no wars or any kind of disturbances in any part of the world. At that time civil war took place in America in connection with the abolition of slavery and Abraham Lincoln became the President of USA. Finally slavery system was abolished and the country became peaceful.
Added to that the world was in rapid progress in agriculture. With these improvements some scholars believed the whole world would become slowly the Christian world.
In addition to that the golden millennial age is also at hand. The Zionism was to begin in Nineteen hundred AD which is responding to the call of Theodore Herzl. Many of the theologians could see the European Jews mixing with other Europe society. The Ottomans control of Israel and Palestine for about 750 years, without any change was worth to note. And also there is no sign of the scattered Jews of the world would join together in Israel.
According to the history all prophesies of the Bible became contradictory and might give an idea that the gentile nations would possess the land of Israel. It is quite conspicuous that even if European Jews were another hundred years with the hope, they would return to their home land. Israel appears to be impossible because they were already mixed with the European society and became part of it.
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They might have undoubtedly mixed with that European society and settled there only never to return. So the opinion of many scholars, that replacement theology would be there historically for the Israel if they became European minded by mixing with them. If they do not understand the scripture and do some mistake, it is left to the discretion of God Almighty to look into their problem. In such circumstances, this replacement theology automatically discourages Christians to extend their moral support any longer to the Jews and Israel. Then naturally the world would understand that Israel had lost the authority of claiming their nation and the land. This pathetic situation might give scope to the neighboring nations (Muslim countries) to annex Israel as if it is no man’s land.
Muslims invaded this small Israel nation during 7th century. Then the crusaders took it and kept under their control. If such position comes to that country again, it becomes poor and tourism may be discouraged. Not only that, if we look into the political conditions of Israel the terrorists who have been trying to wipe out that country from the world map by sending missiles from Gaza. This plan of terrorist attack also became another reason and causing perpetual tension and agony to Arab Christians and the Jews.
In such conditions the persons who had the same line of thinking like Bortlner, must come collectively to the following conclusion – Israel must be denied any authority or entitlement on the land in their constant struggle against Muslims. One day these so called Muslims might occupy this land because of their population explosion and Israel would be left in the air as if they were nobody.
In the Bible there are certain passages which clearly point out God is not yet done with the Israel regarding their land or people.
Acts 1.6 – 8 : One of the disciples Peter asked Jesus one day, “Lord, will thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?.”
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To this question Jesus replied – It is not for you to know the time or reasons which the Lord hath put in His own power. But ye shall receive the power after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you and ye shall be witness unto me in Jerusalem and in all Judah and in Samaria and unto the utmost parts of the earth.
Peter walked with Jesus for three years and learned many things from Him. Now let us come to the Israel who were going to be established. Let us try to grasp the meaning of this question. Some scholars had their own understanding that God did some thing to Israel forever. In the Bible it is said their fate would be decided upon in his own time. That is the Biblical hope. Jesus did not answer to peter, but reminded him, he had other things to do prior to that like preaching about Christ throughout the world as He was raised from the dead. Then He would restore Israel in His divine time.
In Romans 11.1-2, 11.11 – 12 : It is pointed out God has not done with Israel, and Jews though most of them bluntly refused to accept Christ as their king and Messiah.
In Zechariah 12.8 – 14 also said the same theory. In that day the Lord said, He would defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and he that is feeble among them at that time, (day) shall be as David and the house of David shall be as God as the angel of the Lord, before them. And it shall come to pass, in that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
And I will pour out upon the house of David and inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication. They shall look upon me whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for him as one mourned for his only son that is in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his first born “——” . All the families that remain every family that apart their wives apart.
This passage was written about 536 BC, which some Jewish boys memorized in Hebrew language for their bar Mitzvah at the age of thirteen. We find in the 5th verse that many nations will attack Israel that on this occasion God will give them an unparalleled “divine victory”. But positive action could
175 Replacement Theology not be taken in 70 AD, and 134 AD, when the Roman Emperors Titus and Hadrian destroyed Israel as a whole, Jerusalem city and Lords Temple in particular, perhaps it had to happen like that for the purpose of prophetic fulfillment. But the above said divine victory was achieved with military deliverance. God will pour His Spirit upon them and at last in faith, they shall look upon me whom they have pierced. Perhaps, this passage speaks about the time of the end.
Armageddon rescue of Israel might see many nations come together against Jerusalem. This attack fore sees the return of Jews and Israelites to their homeland. It was really hated and invaded by many nations, which had enmity with God. We must remember in this context, how God saved Israelites from their invaders. Those invaders were not at all committed or connected to the Israelites but they were the direct enemies to God. The mental set up of the Jews was such, that they were ready to face any amount of suffering but never tried to accept Christ as their Messiah. Yet God had soft corner for Jews and so wanted to save them from the clutches of their Muslim and other heathen and Antichrist nations. As they were God’s direct enemies, He wanted to destroy them by Himself. If we look in to the Biblical history we can understand how much the Jews suffered for not accepting Christ as their Messiah and due to that they could not enjoy even the divine help. So, it could be a repentance with bitterness and done by the house of David the house of Nathan, the house of Levi and the family of Shimel. This is clearly spoken about Israelites but not of any church. Both David and Nathan died and after four hundred years came Zechariah and prophesied all these things.
In that day (Zechariah 13.1-2) there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for their sin and uncleanness. And it shall come to pass in that day saith the Lord of hosts that I shall cut off names of idols out of that land and they shall no more be remembered and also I will cause the prophets and unclean spirits to pass away out of that land.
These words are in continuation of the 12th chapter from the Book of Zechariah. As said Israel shall be cleansed en mass as and when they show their faith in Christ. And then they shall look upon me, when they show their faith in
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The Redemption Plan of God Christ. And then they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced. This did not happen any more, and this was spoken here in the context of a delivered nation but not on the salvation of individual Jew. And this will happen, when the fact stands on that day on the mount of Olives, which is on the Eastern side of Jerusalem. In this connection let us study the prophesies of Zechariah, that the Messiah would come some day to the rescue of Israel who would be attacked, and after it is done He will stand upon the mount of Olives. On that day the place, Jesus preferred to pray to God, on this very mount of Olives.
Luke 1.32 – 33 He shall be great and shall be called, Son of the highest. And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. And He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever and of His kingdom there shall be no end.
We all remember what God had promised to Abraham and the promise of Gabriel angel to virgin Mary before the birth of Jesus Christ, about two thousand years after Abraham. Among the promises God made to Abraham, the promise of allotting the land of Milk and Honey to his descendants was worth to note. The high priest Melchizedic gave the name Canaan to this land which later occupied by the children of Israel (Jacob) who was the grandson of Abraham. The sons of Jacob later became the twelve tribes of Israel. Abraham was called the father of faithful and God also liked him very much. So God said, He would bless those people who bless Abraham and He would curse those people who curse Abraham. These concluding lines would suffice to prove God’s love towards Abraham.
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