Humm
That strikes me as a point well worth my pondering.
Thank you.
I have said, if not directly here then in other posts on other threads, that I believe the prophetic foreshadow includes what happened to the first century New Covenant church right up to the destruction of that Jewish system of things.
Lehigh3,
I think I figured out how to explain it to you.
You begin with the flesh and make that fleshly natural nation the important thing.
I begin with the spiritual and say that the only reason the fleshly natural nation was ever used was to demonstrate things about that spiritual true nation which was never composed of from or out of only one lineage of flesh.
Can you grasp what I have just said? (In other words, Did I word that well enough that it is understandable? Not impugning your ability to understand but my own ability to adequately explain what I mean.)
You see, when Paul said 1 Corinthians 15:46 "Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual" that ought to not be taken but that he is speaking of how to get out of the mess Adam's sin placed us in. But in reality first was the spiritual which Adam tossed away to get us into this corrupted physical mess.
And the reason one lineage of flesh was used to picture the spiritual one nation of men that was to have been before Adam sinned is that there would have been only one spiritual minded family from the one spiritual minded Adam all one family of God through and in God's Son.
Thus we have the One father Abraham corresponding to God the Father, we have the one spiritually selected son of the father Abraham who is Isaac corresponding to the Son that God made all things through and for, and we have the one Jacob corresponding to Adam (and Jesus the man as the last Adam) with his one family of men.
Israel was but a picture of all flesh that was in Adam and never meant to infer that God was treating that one lineage of men as something special. God merely used that one lineage as a demonstration of the one family that would have been had Adam not sinned.
This is why Paul kept emphasizing that we know no one any longer according to the flesh (meaning according to fleshly lineage) and he told us more than a few times in various ways, Galatians 3:26 "For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."
God was not playing partiality toward any one line of flesh.
Every individual of man has the choice and chance to demonstrate that they are children of their Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:44 "But I command you all, love your enemies, and pray for your persecutors;
45 that so you may become true sons of your Father in Heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the wicked as well as the good, and sends rain upon those who do right and those who do wrong."
Or, every individual of man has the choice and chance to demonstrate that they are not children of the devil: John 8:44 "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."
The misunderstanding by those who are spiritually dull in understanding have turned this into an individually predetermined thing when it is not. All God ever said is that there would be both TYPE of men. He did not foreordain individuals to either type. Christ really did die for the whole world and every single human does have a real choice to make. They are not individually predetermined for a specific lot.
Deuteronomy 30:19 "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live."
Acts 10:34 "Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:
35 But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him."
Acts 17:30 "And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent."
Ezekiel 18:29 Yet saith the house of Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal?
30 ¶Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord GOD. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.
31 Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
32 For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.
