Romans (39) Israel's Future Forfeited? (4) Replacement Theology To Be Replaced

[Rebbe]

PAUL'S LETTER TO THE ROMAN CHRISTIANS (39)
Analytical Commentary on Romans

Has Israel Forfeited Its Future? (Part Four)

ELECTION: Replacement Theology Must Be Replaced
Romans 9-11

The Audio MP3 of this lecture is available via this link: http://www.bripodcasts.com/Romans/Lecture39.MP3

"Truthful lips endure forever,
But a lying tongue lasts only a moment"
" Proverbs 12.19

"Do God's will as you would do your own will, so that he may do your will as if it were his; sacrifice your will for the sake of his will so that he may undo the will of others in favor of your own" (Pirke Avoth 2.4)

Copyright © BRI 2017 All Rights Reserved Worldwide by Les Aron Gosling,
Messianic Lecturer (BRI/IMCF)
CAUTION: BRI Yeshiva notes are not available to the general public. They are not for distribution. They are not for reproduction. The notes may also bear little or no resemblance to the actual audio or video recorded BRI Yeshiva lecture.

In Lecture 38 of this series on Paul's Letter to the Roman Christians we established as a biblical fact that when Paul speaks of a "remnant" of obedient believers existing throughout the ages with which God is primarily preoccupied " a remnant that coexists in the world and with the world but that is not "of the world" " he is invariably focused on a remnant that exists as a small denominator within the State of Israel. The Hebrew Scriptures, which Paul utilises to prove his arguments in relation to the existence of such a remnant body, never speak of a Gentile remnant " the remnant is always an Israelite or Jewish remnant.

To further prosecute my argument, I resorted to Paul's own discourse on the Jewish traditional rite of the challah " the first small piece of dough which is extracted as an offering to God from the larger body of raw dough which is to be baked as life-sustaining bread. It is Paul who argues that as the challah is considered holy " for it is extracted from the larger amount of raw dough " so then is the entire loaf considered holy (Rom 11.16).

We concluded the lecture with a recognition that salvation, as Our Lord Yeshua himself stated, comes from the Jews (Jn 4.22). Paul was in total agreement with his Lord when he pertitently added, that the Gentiles derive their holiness from the people of Israel and decidedly not the other way around. For, "Even if you think yourselves superior [comparing yourselves to the Jews] remember THAT YOU DO NOT SUPPORT THE [JEWISH] ROOT: it is the [Jewish] root that supports you" (Rom 11.18,19).

The Lord has always had a remnant that remained loyal and true to the Living God right throughout Israelite history. We only have to reflect for a moment on the trials and tribulations of the great prophet Elijah, on the run from two most evil tyrants in the persons of Ahab and Jezebel, and who cried out to the Lord that only he remained loyal to heaven (1 Kings 19.4). God opened his eyes to realise that "I shall leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Ba'al, and every mouth that has not kissed his lips" (1 Kgs 19.18 Hebrew; Rom 11.4).

HOW GENTILE CHRISTIANS STEAL FROM ISRAEL
There are a number of ways Gentiles can be guilty of ROBBING Israel " STEALING their identity. Believing in the British-Israel (Anglo-Israel) theory is just one way.

1. This teaching speaks of the white Anglo-Saxon-Celtic peoples of the United Kingdom, Europe, South Africa, America, and Australasia as racial descendants of "the ten lost tribes of Israel." Of course, Jacob or Israel (as he was later called) was born a twin. Twins usually share their siblings characteristics. As strange as it may first appear, the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic peoples of the modern world are actually descendents of Israel's twin brother Esau. They are therefore modern Edomites, not the racial offspring of the "ten lost tribes."

2. Promulgating that the "Church" has replaced Israel as the Chosen People of God is a second way in which Gentiles seek to rob Israel of its identity. This is termed Replacement Theology. Claiming to be a "spiritual Jew" is a subtler, more refined method of theft, but it remains theft nonetheless. Esau is still attempting to retrieve his birthright. His hatred of Israel (Jacob) knows no bounds. We even find this form of anti-Semitism in choruses and hymns that we sing. One title of a hymn immediately springs to mind " "We're Marching To Zion (Beautiful, Beautiful Zion)."

According to Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons (c. 177-195 CE), "The Scriptures are not yours [Israel] but ours." Irenaeus went on to disparage the Jews as disinherited from God's Grace and exalted the Christian church as the new, and authentic, Israel.

Tertullian (c. 160-225 CE) in his treatise Answers to the Jews, was emphatic in his dogma that the Jews, being now rejected as God's Chosen People, were to become the plaintive servants or slaves of the church.

Irenaeus and Tertullian aside, until the advent of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, the common widespread belief of the "church" was that the Jewish apostles were to eventually rule over the restored House of Israel in a future period of time allocated to that purpose (1000 years called the "Millennium"). This idea was based squarely on the biblical revelation and the words of Yeshua. All authentic ecclesiastical authorities recognise this fact. However, after the third revolt against Rome by the Jews (usually referred to, unfortunately, as the second revolt) the Christian authorities began to remove themselves (and their church) from anything and everything considered "Jewish." But it took a somewhat lengthy period to finally discard the biblical revelation in favour of the invention of a new theology which vented the perverted view that the church had justifiably superseded (and thus replaced) Israel.

Certainly, this rejection of Israel reached its peak in the fourth century when the intellectual Augustine was commissioned by Rome to jettison forever the notion of the Jews as God's chosen people. They had to be replaced by the church as the "new Israel." It was Augustine who first gave us the brilliant (and devilish) concept of this new appraisal in concrete form in his own version of the Satanic Verses (apologies to Salman Rushdie) called The City of God.

Intriguingly, Replacement Theology (called by various other names such as Covenant Theology, Dominion Theology, Kingdom-Now Theology, Christian Reconstructionism and Restorationism) is the one central teaching peculiar to both humanistic Romanism and the Seventh Day Adventist denomination. Ellen White, one of the founders of the SDA organisation was enamoured with Augustinian teaching which she inherited from Methodism, and through her books this deadly theological cancer has infected a number of Christian denominations. One of her books entitled The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan shares her Augustinian views. I might just say that there is absolutely NO "controversy" existing between Christ and Satan " neither a small controversy or a large. Messiah is SOVEREIGN and the Dark Lord is always revealed in the holy Scripture to be ever the "overly righteous" (and thus evil) servant of God. As a result, modern "Christian" denominations that hold to Augustinian theological persuasions are suffering, it would seem, from spiritual leukaemia. But these people can only be considered Christian if they deeply appreciate their roots, and thus their life-sustaining sap, in the original Olive Tree (Rom 9,10,11). You cannot be an authentic disciple of the Lord Yeshua and at the same time despise, disdain, hate and hold in contempt the Jewish people.

The reality of the very existence of the present State of Israel stands as a sharp rebuke to all who hold (or have held) to the sham notion of Replacement Theology. Clearly, Israel's single existence as a political State stamps such a spurious theology into the top layer of freshly manured soil.

THE QUMRAN "REMNANT"....
One of the great questions raised by a study of the holy Scripture concerns the apparent silence of the NT writers in respect of the Qumran sectarians. Whether they were in fact Essenes or some other subset of a number of Judaisms in existence during the Second Temple Period is largely considered irrelevant now in academic circles. Indeed, I still speak of the Qumran occupants in the days of Yeshua and Yochanan the Immerser as Essenes (even if they were not). But the writers of NT writ refer often to the Pharisees and the Sadduccees, and also in passing of the Herodians and so forth. But the Essenes, or Qumran sectarians, some of whom also resided in Jerusalem, Damascus and Antioch are never specifically mentioned. I believe there is a special reason for this absence of recognition.

God has always had His remnant of Israelites in days of warfare, insurrection, invasion and apostasy. After the Babylonian Exile a small number of Zadokites separated themselves from the contemporary religious authorities and settled as a community at Qumran on the shores of the Dead Sea, and they became known amongst scholars as the Dead Sea Sect. They emphasised their remnant status in their writings, and after their Scriptures were discovered in the 1940s in caves in the Dead Sea surroundings, Christian and Jewish scholars scrambled to translate the 2000+ year old documents usually with the intention of discovering whether or not "Jesus" had any connection to them. Certainly, a strange leader emerged in their Scriptures known as "The Teacher of Righteousness" and a number of identities were put forward as suggestions that Jesus, James, Paul or even John the Baptist were this gentleman. The majority of scholastic opinion placed the ancient documents further back in time to the second century BCE.

...AND THE ORIGINS OF THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY
On the Day of Pentecost (Shavuot) in 30 CE 3000 souls were added to the Yeshua Messianic Jewish Community, added to an initial company of 120 faithful men and women and the gift of the Ruach HaKodesh was poured out upon them all (Acts 2) -- three thousand defectors from among the Qumran sectaries who lived and worked in the city of Jerusalem! (Both Josephus and Philo estimate that the Qumran Dead Sea members numbered in the vicinity of four thousand souls " Ant., xviii, 21; Probus 75). The Yeshua-Messianists included a great number of "priests" (Acts 6.7).

Intriguingly, there exist a number of quaint similarities when comparing the ceremonies and rites of Qumran with those of the initial Messianic Community. The sectarians were an apocalyptic sect " and an apocalyptic sect is one that views itself as "the true form of its religion." Calling themselves "the righteous remnant," the "chosen ones," and "the Elect of God" in the spirit of the Isaiatic writings, they refused to merge with the "world" at large, and preferred to think of themselves as "separated from it." Their use of terms such as "the end of the age" "the last things" and "the last days" is also reminiscent of early Christian usage. All of these concepts (and a number more from the tattered pages of the Scriptures of the Dead Sea Sect) are to be found referenced throughout the pages of the Messianic Scriptures (NT).

At Qumran we find a Council of Twelve constituting the lower leadership of the Qumran Community (11QT 57.11-13) and in the NT, 12 apostles. On the principle of "As Above, So Below" which is enunciated by Paul in Romans 1 the Christian Community seemingly subsumed Qumran's 24 elders (Rev 4.10; 5.8), and their central core of three inner members (1QS 8.1 " which would parallel Peter, James and John " the "pillars" of the Messianic Christian Community. Yochanan the Immerser (John the Baptiser) had laid plans for his New Israel to be modeled faithfully on original Israel as God's Chosen People in twelve tribes, with twelve high priests being described as "Sons of Zadok" " and Zadok was the High Priest who was loyal to King David.

The Essenes considered themselves to be the remnant of Israel, God's "eternal plantation" (1QH.,V1,15; VIII.5) whose preparations would bear fruit in the coming of the Messiah (Stephen Goranson, Revue de Qumran Vol. 11, No. 4 [44], December 1984, 483-498).  

We should add that the Qumran sectarians also entered into a desert covenant, called "the New Covenant." The New Covenant was entered with an urgent emphasis to restore the purity of the Zadokite priesthood, and a sacred ceremony involving bread and wine was a sacrament not to be ignored. The Qumran Community expected their eschatological work to eventually convert the entire nation of Judaea. Intriguingly, it is mentioned in their respective documents that both the Essenes and the early Christians had members in Damascus and both groupings called themselves "The Way." Moreover, both believed in spiritual gifts, and both acknowledged the centrality of the Holy Spirit in their daily affairs.  

I have already mentioned the Council of Twelve that operated at Qumran. Their documents reveal that.... "The twelve chief [high] priests shall minister at the daily sacrifice before God... Below them shall be the chiefs of the Levites to the number of twelve, one for each tribe... Below them shall be the chiefs of the tribes..." (1QM 2.1-3).

The sectarian Community was then further characterised by divisions consisting of Thousands, Hundreds, Fifties and Tens (1QS 2.21; CD 13.1-2. Cf Yeshua's use of this model when he fed the people in the wilderness, dividing them into similar groupings).

Our Lord Yeshua went a step further training the twelve apostles for administration over the twelve restored tribes (Lk 22.29,30) and utilised 72 (most western texts but Codex Sinaiticus states 70) disciples as his new Sanhedrin (Lk 10.1-24). At Qumran we find a Council of Twelve with a central core of three inner members. The Essene Community Rule also speaks of a central authority figure over the Community known as the Mebakker (literally, overseer) which, again, is the equivalent of the Christian episkopos (the Greek synonym) which corresponds directly to "bishop" in English, or "overseer." He was to "instruct the congregation in the works of God" and "to love them as a father loves his children and carry them in all their distress like a shepherd his sheep" (Damascus Rule XXIII). The shepherd motif needs no comment. And so on the comparisons go.

According to scholar Steven M. Bryan, "There is clear evidence for a community within Second Temple Judaism which not only regarded itself as a remnant but did so during its own historical existence. The emphasis on continuity with past remnants seen in CD 1.4-10; 2.11-12 is less clear in CD 3.10-14 which, in its final form, has to do with God's establishment of...[God's]... community as a remnant:

"Through [God's anger] the first members of the Covenant sinned and were delivered up to the sword, because they forsook the Covenant of God and chose their own will and walked in the stubbornness of their hearts each of them doing his own will. But with the remnant which held fast to the commandments of God He made His Covenant with Israel forever, revealing to them the hidden things in which all Israel had gone astray... God had preserved remnants in the past but only now has he created the remnant of the New Covenant. CD 1.4-10 reflects this sense of eschatological climax: the divine wrath through which the remnant has come into existence is nearing its end" (119).  (NB.,See 2 Kings 19.30,31; Isa 37.31,32.)

Bryan continues, "[The author of the Damascus Document] distinguishes between 'Israel' identified as the remnant and 'all Israel' which had gone astray. The promises of the covenant, including the blessing of election, belong to a remnant which, and as a result, was constituted as Israel (see 1QpNah frags,3-4, 3.5)" (Steven M. Bryan, Jesus and Israel's Traditions of Judgement and Restoration, 2002, 119).

Frankly, it is not stretching a long bow to now declare the Essenes " or the Qumran sectarians by whatever appellation they were known " and the primitive Christian Community to be one and the same body. If this is decidedly not the case the onus is upon the Christian scholars to supply an appropriate alternative reason as to why the most influential and powerful network of first century Messianic evangelism remains a silent embarrassment in the pages of the Christian NT Scriptures.

One author tries to tie the knot between Qumran and primitive Christianity in this way: "The Essenes designated themselves expressly as "a" remnant, and "the" remnant (CD 1.4f; 2.6; 1QH 6.8; 1QM 13.8). Early Christianity, however, related the "remnant"-promise to itself only after the majority of Israel had refused the Gospel (Rom 11.4 [=1 Kings 19.18]; cf Isa 7.3; 10.21: "a remnant will return"; Zeph 3.12f.)" (Leonhard Goppelt, The Ministry of Jesus in its Theological Significance, 1981, 208).

Mills clarifies the issue further. "Because a number, no matter how great or small that number may be, of the people of Israel and their leaders have not accepted Jesus as the promised Messiah, does not nullify or abrogate the Word of God. The faithlessness of those who reject Jesus the Messiah does not mean that the Word of God has failed. In the history of Israel there has never been a time when the whole nation has believed God, His Word, His prophets or His promises; in fact, God's faithful ones have always been a remnant" (Sanford C. Mills, A Hebrew Christian Looks at Romans, 1968, 296).

"I WILL CALL HER MY PEOPLE..."
We have already witnessed to the fact that nowhere in the entirety of the Bible are Christians called "spiritual Jews." The term is not found anywhere in the biblical revelation. Rather, Gentiles who use that expression in speaking of themselves are robbing Israel again " just like the murderous Esau. What Paul did say was that a Jew who is converted is inwardly a Jew, a true Jew, a Jew who praises God. "Judah" and "praise from the heart" is a play on words which Paul uses in Romans 2.28,29 (and please note the context of the latter section of Romans 2) to declare to the Jewish Christians in Rome that only those who can praise God amongst the Jewish community are the true authentic Jewish people. With that argument out of the way, some Christians turn to another statement by Paul in an Esau-attempt to focus special attention on their supposed Gentile supersessionist roots. I will come to this quotation in a moment. But first consider:

That Isaac was the Child of Promise no Jew or Christian will deny. "In Isaac shall your seed be called" (Gen 21.12) God Himself tells us. This specific calling of God is important for all believers to realise because Isaac was not Abraham's only son. Actually, Isaac was Sarah's only son. But Isaac was only one of Abraham's children and he was not Abraham's firstborn son. He was one child of many children of Abraham through not only the Egyptian Princess Hagar (who bore Ishmael to him) but through the sexual favours of Keturah and his other concubines (plural as in Gen 25.6).

Here in the case of Isaac we have a glimpse of a representation of the remnant of God " a constant theme with which we are confronted right throughout the biblical revelation. Even in the frightening "End of Days" a remnant is more than suggested (Rev 12.17).

And so it is that Paul in Romans 9.25 speaks of a remnant which contrary to all popular Gentile opinion does NOT refer to Gentiles " Church or otherwise. What he writes is the following:

"And he says also in Hosea, I will call them my people, which were not my people, and her beloved which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, You are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God" (Rom 9.25,26).

"There," argues the Edomite, "there in this text Paul is letting Gentiles know that they have superseded Israel as fully God's especially chosen people in place of the Jews." Oh, how many sermons have I sat through where I have had to tolerate such abominable nonsense and sheer antisemitism from "vocal yokels" and "hunchbacked, snot-nosed hillbillies" who think they do God a service by their murderous Esau contempt for the Jewish people!

For the love of Christ, please, please, PLEASE refer to the text from which Paul is quoting. He even gives us the name of the prophet who originally penned it onto parchment. His name was Hosea.

What did Hosea write? And to whom did Hosea direct his prophecy? Read it for yourselves.

"The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea... in the days of... the kings of Judah... and in the days of Jeroboam... king of Israel" (Hos 1.1).

The prophetic message is to Judah and to Israel. Pretty clear case, I would have thought. And he gives the reason for its charges against the two houses of the Jews and Israelites.

"... the land has committed great whoredom departing from the Lord" (Hos 1.2).

The Scripture informs us in another place that God took two sisters as His wives, and that He had a contract with them " a marriage covenant made at Sinai into which all of Israel entered. Then they took to themselves "lovers" of the nations about them. They rejected their Husband, Yehovah. Finally, after repeated transgressions of the marriage covenant God had plainly, and understandably, had enough. He torpedoed that Sinai Covenant. He tore it up. He rejected Israel as His people. Even though this occurred, and God sent them into captivity " firstly Israel fell under the onslaught of the Assyrians 721-718 BCE, followed a century later in about 585/587 BCE by a Jewish captivity into Babylon by the emperor Nebuchadnezzar. They wanted lovers, God gave her to them. Did they repent as a people? In no way.

Well, there seemed to have been a partial return by 50,000 of the Jewish captives of Nebuchadnezzar to a marriage contract that God had already torn up, but their hearts were far from Him, and when He came in the Person of Yeshua the Messiah they then murdered their Husband. THAT most certainly ended the relationship. The Covenant ended abruptly with the death of One of the marriage partners. Then in the mid-19th century something remarkable happened. Jews began migrating to the region that used to be known as Judea and Samaria. In 1948 the State of Israel became a monumental reality, and in 1967 " the very year the church STOPPED growing " the Israelis retook Jerusalem from the Jordanians. But let's not get ahead of ourselves in this story flow. Look at what Hosea uttered and from which Paul draws his teaching about the remnant.

Hosea's wife was a prostitute, and he married her and she bore him children. His firstborn was named Jezre'el and God foretold that this child prefigured the coming divorce of Israel, the ten-tribed northern kingdom (Hos 1.4).

Then his wife conceived again and she gave birth to a daughter, Lo-ruhamah (Hos 1.6). God adds that "I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel but I will utterly take them away."

God did. The Assyrians came under Shalmaneser and they disappeared forever.

Notice then, what happened next. God gives the southern kingdom of Judah a breathing space and tells them, through Hosea, that they will not at that time become captives of the Assyrians (Hos 1.7). Then his wife gives birth to another son, who is named Lo-ammi. "For, he says, you are not my people and I will not be your God."

It certainly sounds like Paul is using Hosea to prove a spiritual Gentile ascendancy. But let's not stop at this juncture. Let's carry on. And please accept the word of the Lord on this matter. Not the word of Irenaeus, and not the word of Tertullian, and not the word of Augustine nor ANY of this neurotic's disciples " male or female! What does God predict?

"YET"... uh, oh! Here is a distinctive qualifier to what has gone before. Are we ready for it? Are we up to it? "Yet, the number of the children of ISRAEL shall be as the sand of the sea which cannot be measured or numbered. And it shall come to pass that in the place that it was said of them [ISRAEL], You [ISRAEL] are not my people, there it shall be said unto them [ISRAEL]: You [ISRAEL] are sons of the living God" (Hos 1.10).

Hosea does not stop there. He continues with his prophetic word from the Lord.

"Then shall the children of JUDAH and the children of ISRAEL be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of Jezre'el" (Hos 1.11).

Hosea writes about the terrible destruction of Israel and Judah in chapter 2, along with a description of her restoration, adding.... "I will sow her [ISRAEL/JUDAH] unto me in the earth: and I will have mercy upon her [ISRAEL/JUDAH] that had not obtained mercy. And I will say to them [to ISRAEL/JUDAH] who were not my people, You [ISRAEL/JUDAH] are my people. And they [ISRAEL/JUDAH] shall say, You are my God" (Hos 2.23).

God cast Israel off " divorced her from being His wife. She was plunged into a devastating captivity with her preferred Gentile lovers, and then after a period of time God promised to re-embrace them in His mercy (study closely the entire small scroll of Hosea. It proves to be most enlightening).

When Paul borrows from Hosea, he is not deciding to rewrite holy Scripture! He does not now substitute "Gentiles" for "Israel." Yet this is what many of us have had to sit through (sometimes for decades) under uninspired controlling ministries which have sought to replace Israel in the intent, plan and purpose of God for the human race. Actually misapplying these words of Hosea (and later of Paul) is not merely uninspired testimony with sacred Ruach HaKodesh-texts tragically wrested out of any semblance of the original " but it is satanic to its very core. The context in Romans proves beyond any doubt that the remnant of Israel is under discussion by Paul, not Gentiles.

Listen to his own words: "As he says also in Hosea, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said unto them [unto ISRAEL], You are not my people: there shall they be called the children of the living God. Isaiah also cries concerning ISRAEL, Though the number of the children of ISRAEL be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved. For he will finish the Work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short Work will the Lord make upon the earth. And as Isaiah said before, Except the Lord of legions had left us [ISRAEL] a seed, we had been as Sodom and had been made like unto Gomorrah" (Romans 9.25-29).

A FURTHER CLARIFICATION
There are students of the Bible who have convinced themselves that only Israel was divorced by God and that the marriage contract (covenant of Sinai) torn up by Israel's husband (God) as a consequence of their adultery and promiscuous behaviour with pagan Gentile lovers. Therefore, they say, the remaining Jewish nation (Judah) is still married to God and is bound to the Sinai contract. It's amazing how many Christians believe this story. I have had personal dealings with MANY who assess this idea to be the truth of the matter and of the biblical revelation. But in the scroll of the prophet Jeremiah we find something quite clearly to the contrary. Jeremiah is told by God that the surrounding nations wonder why it is that God has cast off His own people.

"Moreover the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, Consider you not what this people [the nations surrounding Israel and Judah] has spoken, saying, The TWO FAMILIES which the Lord has chosen, he has even cast them off? Thus they have despised my people, that they should be no more a nation before them" (Jer 33.23,24).

Listen! The "two families" of God which God divorced, by sending them away into Gentile captivity, were Israel and Judah. Both sisters, both married to God as His two wives " were subjected to God's fury and denunciation for their infidelity and continued pursuit of pagan lovers. He divorced them both and tore up the Marriage agreement (contract/covenant) made at Sinai. This is why the Sinai covenant is not an issue today. Rather the issue is the LORD Yeshua and the New Covenant " a covenant "not like the one made at Sinai" (Jer 31.32: therefore not a renewed covenant or renewed marriage agreement) as we are forthrightly told in the New Covenant Scriptures.

Here in the Jeremiah text we find that the Gentile nations themselves are convinced because of the shocking invasion and captivity into Assyria (as pertained to the northern kingdom of Israel) and a later captivity for the Jews of the southern kingdom of Judah being taken into Babylonia.

BOTH Israel and Judah were cast off " DIVORCED " by God. Furthermore, the Jews killed their Husband, bringing an end to whatever might have remained of the Sinai Covenant (at least in the minds of the Jewish people who returned to Jerusalem from Exile).

At the conclusion of Romans 9 we are now prepared to consider the Gentiles and the proposition that they were grafted into Israel. There are some scholars who go further in their estimation of this act of "grafting" by claiming Gentiles and Jews are now grafted not into Israel as such but into "One New Man." That "One New Man" is in the final analysis, the Cosmic Christ. But is this a correct biblically sound position? We answer this question in our next lecture.

THIS CONCLUDES LECTURE 39

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