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From Promise to Fulfillment (Or, Good News for Jews)

Abraham
Fresco of Abraham by Filipino Lippi (1502), in the vault of the Strozzi chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence

In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days He has spoken to us by a Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the ages.

So begins the Letter to the Hebrews. Compared to the knowledge of pagan religions, Judaism’s knowledge of God is sunlight compared to fog. And yet God’s final and complete utterance, so Christians believe, is His Incarnate Word, His eternally begotten Son born in time of the Virgin Mary. In Jesus of Nazareth, divine revelation reaches its unsurpassable fullness. The Jewish Bible, or what Christians call the Old Testament, creates the climate of preparation, of longing for one who could give final meaning to God’s plan in history. Of course, there’s a big difference between preparation and fulfillment. The Old Testament opens perspectives and awakens hopes, but it tells a story in need of a last chapter.

With this post, I’ll attempt to explain how, from the standpoint of Christian faith, Jesus fulfills what was promised to Israel’s patriarchs and prophets. Not only that, but He gives those promises a new and deeper significance.

First, however, a caution. Christians will naturally want to highlight the individual Old Testament texts that give a kind of preview of Jesus. But these prophecies don’t describe Him so clearly and unmistakably that one need only read the prophecies to find Christ fully present there. God gradually prepared Israel for the overwhelming reality of the Savior. At no stage of the preparation did any Jew adequately understand or even suspect the full meaning of God’s plan: that God Himself, the Second Person of the undivided Trinity, would become man to die and rise for our salvation. Therefore, in our quest for neat mathematical equation between Old Testament prophecy and New Testament fulfillment, it’s important that we discern God’s slow task of educating His people by couching the hope of the future in forms that would be meaningful for the present. With that said, I’ll begin by taking up the question of the Messiah.

The Hebrew word mashiach, “messiah” (in Greek it is christos, “christ”), is used in the Old Testament to refer to those who received a ceremonial anointing with oil in the rite of assuming the offices of king and priest. Eventually the term came to be used in a technical sense to refer to Yahweh’s1 Yahweh, “I am who am,” is a causative form of the ancient Hebrew verb hah (to be) and is the revealed proper name of the one true God; see Exodus 3:13-15. anointed representative who would crush Israel’s oppressors and usher in God’s reign. Although the Messiah was assigned various powers and dignities, he was not thought of as divine. Salvation is the work of Yahweh alone, and Yahweh is free to save with or without the help of an anointed agent.

Because the title “Messiah” had political and nationalistic connotations, Jesus generally avoided using it of Himself, one exception being His conversation with the Samaritan woman in the Gospel of John. Being a Samaritan and antagonistic toward Jews, she would be unlikely to interpret the term in the popular sense. Her people would be more inclined to view the Messiah as a universal savior, and many Samaritans did in fact come to acknowledge Jesus as “the Savior of the world.”2 John 4:42

The Messiah as Son of David
God had promised that the Messiah would be a descendant of King David, strong with the power of Yahweh, and would reign over a kingdom of justice and peace, perfectly fulfilling the ideal that had been imperfectly realized in David and his successors.3 For some key samplings of this royal messianic hope, read 2 Samuel 12:7-16, Isaiah 9:1-6, and Jeremiah 23:5-6.

The New Testament offers its own witness to the hope of a Davidic Messiah. Saint Joseph, the legal and presumed father of Jesus, was a direct descendant of David,4 See the genealogy in Matthew 1:1-16. and his legal paternity conferred rights of inheritance. 5 It is less certain whether the Blessed Virgin Mary likewise came from the line of David, although Saint Paul hints at this in saying that Jesus was “descended from David according to the flesh” (Romans 1:3), and certain Fathers of the Church maintained that Mary was of the house of David. Blind Bartimaeus addressed Jesus as “Son of David”6 Mark 10:47, as did the crowds who shouted their Hosannas as Jesus entered Jerusalem riding a donkey in accord with Zechariah’s messianic prophecy.7 See Matthew 21:9, fulfilling Zechariah 9:9. A thousand years earlier, David’s son Solomon rode a mule at his presentation as king to the cheering crowds of Jerusalem.8 See 1 Kings 1. Jesus, on that first Palm Sunday, signified that He was the greater son of David.

It would be too much to discuss all the perspectives the Old Testament opens up in its preparation for the Messiah. We can, however, look briefly at some other forms taken by Israel’s messianic hope, besides the Davidic king. Becoming familiar with at least the main strands of “messianism” will help us better appreciate the divinely directed longing and expectation that Jesus Christ answers.

The Messiah as Son of Man and Suffering Servant
The messianic hope of the Jews expressed itself above all in the longing for a great king, a new David, who would save Israel from her enemies and inaugurate the reign of God. This form of Messianism took its rise from God’s promise to David to give his son an everlasting dynasty that would extend over all nations.9 See 2 Samuel 7:8-16. Thus, a royal descendant of David would fulfill God’s promise to make Abraham the father of many.10 See Genesis 15:5-6; 17:4-8. Just as God raised up Moses to deliver Israel, the nation born of Abraham’s son Isaac, from Egypt,11 See Exodus 2:25 and 6:5. so it was for “my people Israel” that God established His covenant with David. This covenant between Yahweh and the house of David did not annul but rather absorbed the ancient Mosaic covenant between Israel and Yahweh.

It makes an interesting exercise to examine the historical record and count the number of those who were judged worthy of their great ancestor, David. Yet Yahweh would not go back on His word. Although the Babylonian exile (587–539 BC) and the return to Judah under Persian rule had put an end to kingship in Israel, the people never lost hope in a future ruler who would establish Yahweh’s rule over the world. David’s eternal kingship becomes, in the New Testament, the glorious reign of the risen Christ, Son of David through Saint Joseph.

But there are other strands of Messianism to consider. When Caiaphas asked Jesus, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus answered unequivocally, “I am,” and immediately added that He, the Christ, would fulfill the glorious destiny of the “Son of Man.”12 See Mark 14:60-62. The title “Son of Man,” which Jesus preferred to use in speaking of Himself, had different meanings. It could signify human beings in general or, as in the mind of the prophet Daniel, an exalted heavenly figure who will appear in the end times.13 See Daniel 7:13-14. Jesus extended and enriched the Son of Man theme by associating it with His future passion, death, and resurrection.14 As in Mark 8:31; 9:9 and 14:21 A humiliated and suffering Son of Man evokes another mysterious figure, namely, the Suffering Servant of Yahweh, as described in Isaiah, chapters 52 and 53.

The fusion of these two themes — Son of Man and Suffering Servant — in the person of the Messiah is both novel and paradoxical. That this combination of ideas was hard to accept is shown by the reaction of the disciples, who were scandalized at the prospect of a dead Messiah. When we add to this new revelation Christ’s prediction that His disciples would have to share His suffering, is it any wonder that they found this a hard teaching or that they were slow to grasp its profound significance? As Pope Benedict XVI wrote, “The scandal of the Cross is harder for many to bear than the thunder of Sinai had been for the Israelites.”15 Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, trans. A. J. Walker (New York: Doubleday, 2007), pp. 67-68 Only the actual events themselves—Christ’s passion, death and resurrection, together with the sending of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost—would bring the light necessary to comprehend how the three main lines of messianic promise—Son of David, Son of Man, and Suffering Servant—were to be identified with Jesus of Nazareth.

Of course, not everyone came to believe in Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah of the Jews, never mind as God (the Son) incarnate. Ancient Jews and Christians eventually parted ways in their reading of Israel’s Scriptures. For Christians, Jesus is the great new fact that guides a massive re-reading of the Old Testament. The Romans crucified Him as “King of the Jews,” so that He might show Himself to be the messianic Son of David. Judaism condemned Him as a son of man, thus placing Him in the glorious light of the messianic fulfillment of the “Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.”16 Mark 14:62 And in the death of the Suffering Servant, who on Calvary gave His life as an offering for sin,17 As prophesied in Isaiah 53:10 divine justice and mercy unite in humanly inconceivable fashion.

In addition to these messianic themes, there are other ways in which Jesus fulfills God’s promises, including the promise that Israel is to be “a light to the nations.”18 Isaiah 42:6

A New and Eternal Covenant
The ancient covenant between God and Israel was crystallized in the Law given to Moses and expressed by God’s dwelling with His people, first in the tabernacle of the desert, and later in the Jerusalem Temple. With Jesus Christ, a new covenant came into force. He is the anointed king, the messianic Son of David who, in a new “exodus,” freed people from captivity to Satan, sin, and death by being “pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins.”19 Isaiah 53:5 To the people gathered on the slopes of an open hillside He proclaimed: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them”20 Matthew 5:17 Everything He said and did was always related to the first assertion that His work was a fulfillment of God’s promises, especially since the days of Abraham.

It was no simple matter to see all that the Lord’s work entailed. His closest disciples failed to comprehend the inner logic of His teaching. They witnessed His miracles and they heard His words, yet the two disciples of Emmaus probably spoke for all when they said regretfully, “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”21 Luke 20:21 They did not understand how a man, dying “accursed” on a cross, could be the long-expected Messiah. And so, the risen Jesus gave those puzzled followers a lesson in biblical interpretation, beginning with Moses and the prophets.

But of all the discussions Jesus had with some of the best minds in Judaism, His dialogue with Nicodemus the Pharisee perhaps captured His mission best. Jesus told Nicodemus, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”22 John 3:5 He came not to destroy but to make all things new, and He was asking people to be reborn “from above.” He could have cited God’s promise to Israel—“A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you…”23 Ezekiel 36:26—but He had still greater truths for Nicodemus. In rapid order, He gave insights into His heavenly origin, His future death, His testimony of God’s love for all people, and the way of salvation that leads through faith in Him.24 See John 3:10-21.

The new spirit that our Lord held out to Nicodemus was shown in His interpretation of the Law of Moses. External compliance with the letter of the Law is not enough, Jesus taught: the Law must be observed interiorly. This was the original ideal set before every child of the covenant: “Be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”25 Leviticus 19:2 To accomplish this there was required a new spiritual law written, not on stone tablets, but in human hearts. In six different sections of his “Sermon on the Mount,” Jesus contrasted His interpretation of the Torah and the usual form of observance: “You have heard it said… But I say to you…”26 Matthew 5:17-48 The Law of Moses prohibited homicide and adultery; Jesus forbade hatred and impure desires. The Law permitted a man to divorce his wife; Jesus commanded union until death. Far from making light of the Law, Jesus raised it to a dignity never before known.

Our Lord’s work was crowned by His death and resurrection, but not before He had formed a new “People of God” into one body to bear His revelation to all nations. Thus, twelve Apostles assembled on Mount Zion in imitation of the twelve tribes of Israel on Mount Sinai. It was the traditional Passover meal, wherein all the wonders of God were commemorated and made to live again. Jesus proclaimed to them His new Law of loving others as He had loved them. He reviewed all the manifestations of God’s love for Israel in bringing them forth from Egypt. Several times He referred to the “Kingdom of Heaven” and while doing so He gave them His Body and Blood under the appearances of bread and wine. “Do this in remembrance of me,”27 Luke 22:20 He instructed them, evoking the words of Yahweh at the first Passover: “This day shall be a memorial feast for you … a perpetual institution.”28 Exodus 12:14

The covenant constituting them the “New Israel” was established and sealed with Christ’s Blood, shared at the Last Supper and shed on Calvary. Thus was fulfilled the new and eternal covenant prophesied in Jeremiah 31:31-33 and renewed in every celebration of the Eucharist. Christ is the true Temple wherein dwells God’s glory. So too are the members of His body the Church: living stones joined to Christ the cornerstone, built up into God’s dwelling place.29 See 1 Peter 2:4-5; Ephesians 2:20-22.

To this new covenant people, Christ’s holy Church, come also the blessings of the covenant: not now merely land and length of days but eternal life. And instead of a plot of land to call their national home, they have a patria, a true Fatherland in the heavenly City, the New Jerusalem that is to come. In the meantime, the Church offers no new and easy cures for the despair that warps so many lives. Her strength doesn’t consist in ready-made solutions. Rather, faithful to the biblical tradition, she offers to the world the fulfilled hope of Israel.

Judaism and Christianity intertwined
Contrary to the expectations of the early Christians, Judaism didn’t come to an end after the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple by the Romans in the year 70. Today, two thousand years after the coming of Christ, there exist Jewish communities that observe the ancient laws of Moses concerning the Sabbath, circumcision, diet, Passover, and so on. This fact raises questions to which Christians cannot be indifferent. Does the old covenant remain in force? Has God permanently willed the practice of Judaism?

The Second Vatican Council reiterated perennial Catholic teaching, based as it is on Scripture and the Church Fathers’ reading of Scripture. Through Abraham and the other patriarchs, and after them through Moses and the prophets, God taught Israel “to acknowledge Him as the one living and true God, provident father and just judge, and to wait for the Savior promised by Him, and in this manner prepared the way for the Gospel down through the centuries.”30 Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum (18 November 1965), no. 3 First, God “entered into a covenant with Abraham and, through Moses, with the people of Israel.”31 Ibid., no. 14 One and the same God “wisely arranged that the New Testament be hidden in the Old and that the Old be made manifest by the New.”32 Ibid., no. 16

Christians, then, have a special bond with the Jews. However differently Jews and Christians may understand God’s essence and actions, both profess faith in the one God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus. The Church is conscious that she is a branch grafted onto the olive tree of Israel. On that basis she claims Abraham as her own patriarch or “father in faith.”33 From the prayer Supra quae of the Roman Canon of the Mass The second-century priest Marcion was condemned as a heretic for teaching that the Christian Gospel had nothing to do with the Old Testament. Had he won the day, the Christian Bible would include only the New Testament—and even that trimmed by Marcion’s scissors. Can any Christian read the prerogatives of Judaism enumerated in Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans without lowering his head in awe?34 Romans 9:4-5: “They are the Israelites, and to them belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed for ever. Amen.”

Nevertheless, Judaism’s role after Christ is limited. The New Testament, in certain passages, indicates that the old covenant has been replaced. Saint Paul contrasts the old covenant, carved on stone, which has lost its previous splendor, and the new covenant, written on human hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is permanent and burns brightly.35 See 2 Corinthians 3:3. He speaks of Christ as “the end of the Law,”36 Romans 10:4 apparently meaning its goal. The Mosaic Law yields to the “law of Christ”37 1 Corinthians 9:21; Galatians 6:2 or the “law of the Spirit.”38 Romans 8:2 Saint Thomas Aquinas, drawing on the Church Fathers and medieval authorities, sought to reconcile these passages with Christ’s assertion that He had come not to abolish but to fulfill the Law.39 See Matthew 5:17. Aquinas distinguished the moral and ceremonial precepts of the old covenant: only the moral law (as expressed, above all, in the Ten Commandments) endures, albeit in the fuller sense Christ gave it.

Fulfillment, then, is not abandonment. As Saint Paul makes clear in Romans, chapters 9 through 11, the mysterious connection between the old and new covenants engages a still-unfolding story. The mystery of Israel and the mystery of the Church are mysteriously intertwined.

While we should want to avoid Marcionism, we shouldn’t give the impression that there are two parallel covenants equally pleasing to God. As the late Cardinal Dulles asserted a decade ago,

Such a view is … irreconcilable with the New Testament and with the whole Catholic tradition. It is contrary to Vatican II (which expressed the hope that the whole world would recognize Jesus Christ as Savior), and incompatible likewise with current magisterial teaching, which is normative for Catholics.40 “Avery Cardinal Dulles Replies,” First Things 160 (February 2006), p. 6. Dulles was replying to a letter commenting on his essay, “The Covenant with Israel,” First Things 157 (November 2005), pp. 16-21.

How could anyone who sincerely confesses Jesus as Christ and Lord not want to make Him known and loved by all, Jews included? To refuse to share with “our elder brothers in the faith of Abraham”41 St. John Paul II used this phrase when visiting the Great Synagogue of Rome on 13 April 1986. the treasures that the Messiah brought to the world is a sin against charity. It is one thing to affirm, as the Catholic Church affirms, the possibility (as distinct from the certainty or likelihood) of salvation for Jews and others who are outside the Catholic Church through no fault of their own—an affirmation that does not necessarily undermine the truth that Jesus Christ is the unique Savior of the world.42 See HERE and HERE, for example. It is quite another thing to discourage the evangelization of Jews, as if Christ intends His Church to be the spiritual home of the Gentiles only.43 A hot-off-the-press Vatican document on Catholic-Jewish relations acknowledges the vocation of individual Christians “to bear witness to their faith in Jesus Christ also to the Jews … in a humble and sensitive manner,” but rejects “any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews” (emphases mine). It lists as the important goals of official Catholic-Jewish dialogue: deepened reciprocal knowledge of Jews and Christians, joint engagement throughout the world for justice and peace, and combatting all forms of anti-Semitism.

The late Father Richard John Neuhaus once said that the old covenant is still in force in its most important aspect, namely, God’s gracious predilection for His chosen people. If that’s true (and I believe it is), then the real offense against the Jews is not to share with them the good news of the Jewish Jesus who, in ways often paradoxical, fulfills God’s promises and Israel’s hopes.

Footnotes

Footnotes
1 Yahweh, “I am who am,” is a causative form of the ancient Hebrew verb hah (to be) and is the revealed proper name of the one true God; see Exodus 3:13-15.
2 John 4:42
3 For some key samplings of this royal messianic hope, read 2 Samuel 12:7-16, Isaiah 9:1-6, and Jeremiah 23:5-6.
4 See the genealogy in Matthew 1:1-16.
5 It is less certain whether the Blessed Virgin Mary likewise came from the line of David, although Saint Paul hints at this in saying that Jesus was “descended from David according to the flesh” (Romans 1:3), and certain Fathers of the Church maintained that Mary was of the house of David.
6 Mark 10:47
7 See Matthew 21:9, fulfilling Zechariah 9:9.
8 See 1 Kings 1.
9 See 2 Samuel 7:8-16.
10 See Genesis 15:5-6; 17:4-8.
11 See Exodus 2:25 and 6:5.
12 See Mark 14:60-62.
13 See Daniel 7:13-14.
14 As in Mark 8:31; 9:9 and 14:21
15 Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, trans. A. J. Walker (New York: Doubleday, 2007), pp. 67-68
16 Mark 14:62
17 As prophesied in Isaiah 53:10
18 Isaiah 42:6
19 Isaiah 53:5
20 Matthew 5:17
21 Luke 20:21
22 John 3:5
23 Ezekiel 36:26
24 See John 3:10-21.
25 Leviticus 19:2
26 Matthew 5:17-48
27 Luke 22:20
28 Exodus 12:14
29 See 1 Peter 2:4-5; Ephesians 2:20-22.
30 Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum (18 November 1965), no. 3
31 Ibid., no. 14
32 Ibid., no. 16
33 From the prayer Supra quae of the Roman Canon of the Mass
34 Romans 9:4-5: “They are the Israelites, and to them belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed for ever. Amen.”
35 See 2 Corinthians 3:3.
36 Romans 10:4
37 1 Corinthians 9:21; Galatians 6:2
38 Romans 8:2
39 See Matthew 5:17.
40 “Avery Cardinal Dulles Replies,” First Things 160 (February 2006), p. 6. Dulles was replying to a letter commenting on his essay, “The Covenant with Israel,” First Things 157 (November 2005), pp. 16-21.
41 St. John Paul II used this phrase when visiting the Great Synagogue of Rome on 13 April 1986.
42 See HERE and HERE, for example.
43 A hot-off-the-press Vatican document on Catholic-Jewish relations acknowledges the vocation of individual Christians “to bear witness to their faith in Jesus Christ also to the Jews … in a humble and sensitive manner,” but rejects “any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews” (emphases mine). It lists as the important goals of official Catholic-Jewish dialogue: deepened reciprocal knowledge of Jews and Christians, joint engagement throughout the world for justice and peace, and combatting all forms of anti-Semitism.

37 thoughts on “From Promise to Fulfillment (Or, Good News for Jews)”

  1. Thanks for the article Father. At this point, though, simply repeating the Truth isn’t enough. Shouldn’t we rather be identifying Koch et al. as institutional traitors to the Great Commission?

    Reply
    • Brian, this is what happens when too many members of the Church become “close” friends with members of other faiths. Think about it. The closer you get to them, the harder it gets to proclaim the Truth of the Church.

      The Pope’s close friends seems to include rabbis, imams, and protestant pastors. If if such a man believed in absolute truth, it would be increasingly difficult to proclaim it since you wouldn’t want to hurt the feelings of your friends.

      The Truth is simple. It doesn’t matter if you are Jew, Pagan, Muslim, or whatever. If you want to be saved, accept Christ as Messiah and enter His Church, the Holy Catholic Church so that you might be saved.

      The problem is that this is too direct and the traitors to the Great Commission hate comments that are so absolute.

      What can we do but pray for the Church?

      Reply
      • IF there existed an actual continuity we’d not be burdened with this fog of politics for the First Pope and the Apostles/ Bishops went into Synagogues and private homes to preach Christ and conversion (Acts) whereas our modern Peters go into Synagogues and do not preach either Christ or Conversion for both sides know that the FIRST time a pope preaches Christ and Conversion in a Synagogue (Synagogues are the property of Satan accord to Apocalypse) will be the LAST time that happens.

        No, we are expected to bow and scrape before our permanent enemies and to change the prayers of our Mass and they are expected to do what?

        Do they have to change their prayers? Nope. And how many know what the Jews pray for in regards to the One True Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church?

        And, of course,the hot air that keeps this deluding dirigible in the air for all to marvel at and bow down before is the war crimes of the Germans committed against the Jerws and the Church has sold its soul in referring to the war crimes as the Holocaust because the Church has allowed those war crimes to supplant THE Holocaust.

        There is one – and only one – Holocaust; the Pluperfect Sacrifice of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, on Calvary where His Fiery Charity replied the material fire but you will NEVER hear a Pope or Prelate preach that in a Synagogue – OR A CATHOLIC CHURCH – but modern Popes and Prelates will routinely substitute the war crimes as described by their permanent enemies for The Holocaust as a sermon and so one is left marveling at this strange new disorientation.

        How few are they who understand that the Messias-Deniers are, by dint of an ineffable irony, also Holocaust-Deniers ?

        Obviously, Messias-Deniers are constrained to also be Holocaust-Deniers but Catholics are too craven to speak the plain and simple truth (what was it Voltaire said about fear of criticising a certain group is one way to indentify who rules over you?)

        And so, yawn, the predictable response is anti semite!!!

        O, but note well that anti semitism is never defined which makes it a perfect accusation because it fits everything from actual hatred of Jews (what could be MORE hateful than NOT to try and convert Jews for they are going to Hell if they are not converted ?) to criticism of Israel (Yes, Virginia, criticism of Israel in anti semitism; that IS an American Law)

        Such massive absurdity is never considered owing to the reality the Catholic mind has been cultivated by its Messias-Denying enemy, but, just substitute another country for Israel, say, Portugal, and try to imagine an American Legislature passing a bill stating that criticism of Portugal is Anti Catholicism.

        We live in weird times and just get stranger and stranger

        Reply
        • Absolutely correct. It is the outworking of the curses for breaking God’s covenant that are elaborated in the Apocalypse. As a half truth is a whole lie, then to fail to teach the fullness of truth regarding these matters is deception.

          God’s call is indeed irrevocable but since the promulgation of the New Covenant, that call has gone out to every man and woman of every race and nation on the earth – without distinction. However, God’s call and our response are two very different things!

          Reply
          • Yes. Look, we have children and when we call our children out of the darkness and into the safety of their home but they do not answer the call, who is at fault?

            As the Universal Church of God, why have we decided to stop calling the Jews home?

            It could be plausibly considered an act of extreme hatred to refuse to cal the Jews home because we know, don’t we, that Messias-Deniers will go to Hell.

            At least that is what Jesus teaches – see Luke 19:27

          • “We” haven’t decided to stop calling the Jews home. It is only spineless bishops who are afraid to cause offence who have decided to stop calling the Jews home. It is probably the collective national guilt of European bishops in particular which lies behind this in part. They are compensating for their countries’ collusion with the “Final Solution.” Most of Europe caved in to the Jack Boot and, apart from a few brave souls, collaborated with the deportation of Jews to concentration camps. They now live in fear of being labelled “anti-semitic” if they say anything which Jews will object to. And the Jews are very good at objecting and pressing the guilt button. After all, there is no business like Shoah business.

            Also it is a mark of how deeply Modernism has its hold on the Church that before, during and after Vatican II, so many bishops believe that Revelation is subject to, and should be reinterpreted because of the vagaries of historical events – even though those events happen 2,000 years after the faith was delivered to the saints.

          • Well, our current and previous Popes have stopped calling the wayward children of God home even while, more and more, the Church is insulted and assaulted by her own children when they accuse Holy Mother Church of being anti semitic and both a remote and proximate cause of Nazi war crimes.

            Well, the truth is that the Church, with La Civilta Catholic as its official organ, was doing exactly the opposite of what putative trads fallen accuse her of doing -sowing anti semitism.

            Holy Mother Church was warning the European nations that they had a duty to act to curtail the malign actions of the Jews or that the Jews would have to suffer unimaginable punishments and this warning was issued in the late 19th century about forty years before Hitler was named Chancellor.

            Begin quotes
            +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

            Ultimate Defense: Setting Aside Civil Equality

            But as long as Christianity doesn’t shed the political yoke of Masonry, it will be vain to propose and discuss possible solutions for liberation. The only solution and, at the same time the most reliable one, is to turn back and retake the way where one has gone astray. If the Hebrews are not put in their place by humane and Christian laws, certainly, but nevertheless by laws of exception which deprive them of civil equality, to which they have no right and which is even no less pernicious for them than it is for Christians, little or nothing will be accomplished. Seeing the inevitability of their presence in the various countries; seeing their unalterable nature of their being foreigners in every country, and of their being enemies of each country that tolerates them, and of their being a society always separated from the societies in which it lives; seeing the Talmud’s morality that they follow, and the fundamental dogma of their religion which impels them to seize, by any means whatsoever, the goods of all peoples, because it assigns to their race the possession of, and the domination over, all the world; seeing that the experience of many centuries, and that one which we are undergoing at present, has proven and still proves, that the legal equality with Christians conceded to them in the Christian states results either in their oppression of Christians or in their slaughter by Christians, there emerges the consequence that the only way of reconciling the Hebrews’ residence with the Christians’ rights is to regulate it with such laws which, at the same time, impede the Hebrews from offending the Christians’ welfare, and impede the Christians from offending that of the Hebrews.

            And this is just what, in a more or less perfect manner, has been done in the past; this is what, for a century, the Hebrews have tried to abolish; but this is also what, sooner or later, willingly or unwillingly, will have to be restored, and perhaps the Hebrews themselves will be constrained to ask that it be restored. For the predominance to which today’s revolutionary law has helped them is digging an abyss under their feet, whose depth corresponds to the height to which they have risen. And at the first burst of the storm they are provoking by their very predominance at present, they will suffer such an enormous ruin, heralding an event as unequaled in their history as their modern audacity is also unequaled and with which they have trampled the nations that have madly exalted them.

            +++++++++++++++++++++++++++

  2. I expected by this time a strong reaction, in fact an uproar, in the Catholic press about the document “The Gifts and the Calling of God Are Irrevocable” that was released yesterday, but strangely this doesn’t seem to have happened. Many who read this site already know I am philosemitic and that I support strongly Israel in her struggle for survival in a hostile Mohammedan world. That said, though, I found this latest Vatican document disturbing and perplexing. To put the matter succinctly, it makes no sense. When the same writers tell you first that “…the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable”… and then later follow that with “…this means that the Catholic Church neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews,” only one conclusion offers itself, viz. Jews needn’t be concerned with Christ or His teachings since they already have what is necessary for salvation! There is the rather considerable problem that this contradicts totally 2000 years of Church teaching. Of course, “The Gifts and the Calling of God are Irrevocable” doesn’t state this conclusion clearly at all. The declaration is, indeed, a masterpiece of ambiguity and doublespeak. In that it seems to follow faithfully the wording of many of the documents that came out of Vatican II. Beyond that, I don’t know if Pope Francis has any hand in the writing of “The Gifts,” but its style is redolent of his own.

    Reply
      • Interesting. Thanks for the tip. The one thing I did agree with in the Vatican’s latest foray into this question is that the Shoah changed everything (excepting, naturally, the Church’s teachings of 2000 years). It was, in fact, what finally pushed forward the attempt to have a Jewish homeland and the Church’s reconsideration of its own role in outbreaks of European anti-Semitism. If Pius X had had the wisdom provided by hindsight, I am sure he would have been happier to see the Holy Land in the hands of Jews, secular or religious, rather than to see them pillaged by Mohammedan savages. He lived in a time when Islamic ardors had been considerably cooled by long European colonial occupation, thus his view of the enormous Mohammedan menace was skewed.

        Reply
        • Had there not been relative peace in Palestine for centuries up until the League of Nations construct known as the British Mandate? The British Mandate would be similar to the EU of today deciding Spaniards have to give up their land in Spain to North Africans because the Africans had lived there from early 700 A.D. to the late 1400s.
          And I beg to differ regarding the 2000 years of church teachings. Those have substantially changed regarding Jews, especially after Nostra Aetate, correct? They are now our ‘elder brothers in faith’. Except it’s really not clear which faith the Vatican means. The faith in a messiah, or the faith that we await the messiah?

          Reply
          • I never understood the “elder brothers in faith” thing. First of all, the Jews of today are practicing a different religion from actual Judaism (Temple Sacrifice times). Actual Judaism as we know has been completed in the creation of the Catholic Church. Knowing this, how can the Jews of today be the “elder brothers.”

          • Correct. The oral laws of the pharisees were written as the Talmud and that is what the Jews since the time of the crucifixion call Judaism, and the Talmud is the text to which the adhere and which they primarily study, over and above the Torah (Old Testament).

            This is interesting. HIAS (Hebrew Immigration Aid Society) has stated “the [United States] refugee program is at risk” and one thousand rabbis have signed a letter to Congress
            http://www.hias.org/sites/default/files/hias_1000_rabbis_support_refugees.pdf

            However, the above is in STARK contrast to this:
            http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/04/binyamin-netanyahu-israel-jewish-state

            And to this:
            When Israel is Mighty- an interview with Yossi Gurvitz
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1rqumlVe04

            And this:
            Yossi Gurvitz in Bil’in, Palestine, interviewed by Philip Weiss
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA1Fhtp-3eY

            And this:
            Israelis threaten African refugees.
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1rqumlVe04

          • They aren’t. Judaism as we know it today was formed in 70 AD after Jerusalem was destroyed owing to its Deicide and it has zero connection with OT Judaism.

            The new Judaism was formed as a permanent revolutionary cabal intent on opposing and destroying the One True Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church.

            One elders in the Faith are the Faithful Jews who accepted the Messias whereas the Messias-Deniers of today can not possibly, in any way, be our Elder Brothers and it is a bizarre idea that the Jews have any excuse whatsoever for not accepting Jesus as the Messias as that would mean that God, not they, were deficient.

            That aside, the Messias-Deniers do not like that description for it reminds them of how many times in the past the eldest son was passed over in favor of the younger one.

            The Church is conscious that she is a branch grafted onto the olive tree of Israel

            Jesus is the olive tree

          • Well, the claim could be substantiated were those making it capable of citing even one – just one- Aaronic Priest amongst the Apostles.

            The break is clear as day.

            The Synagogue of Satan continued to be ruled by those in the Priestshoof of Aaron whereas the Church was ruled by, well, Christians.

            So how’n’hell could they be our elder brothers unless Elder Brothers refers to the Old Testament wherein the elder brothers (Esau, Shimeah, Nathaniel et al, Judah, Benjamin et al) were passed-over in favor of the younger brother like Jacob, David, and Joseph) but one doesn’t think that is what is meant.

            Elder Brothers in in the faith could mean Abraham and/or the faithful Jews who became Christians after conversion, but that does not seem the case either.

            Who knows?

          • The OT typology of the younger son being preferred to the older (do not forget Cain & Abel) could not be more clear. It is echoed in the parable of the Prodigal Son. The ministry of our Lord contains innumerable warnings to the Hebrews that they were about to be displaced. While they may not be our older brothers in the strict historical sense of the origins of rabbinical Judaism, the typological reference to the Jews as a people is persuasive.

          • The problem is what the definition of a Jew is.

            Ask an israeli about that and you may discover, for example, that the Law of Return excludes as a Jew the son of a Jewish Mother who converts to Catholicism.

            If Jew means a Messias-Denier, then he/they are not our elder brethren but, as is so often the case, precision is lacking in these pronouncements where at one time it is obvious (when we won’t try to convert Jews) that Jew means one who is a Messias-Denier whereas at another time Jew seems to refer to those who accepted the messiah and became Catholic (new israel) or maybe even Jews qua Jews.

            We Christians and Jews who rightly claim Abraham as our Father must exclude as our elder brethren those Jews who are Messias-Deniers, right?

            It seems they must be excluded for Jesus called those Jews – Messias-Deniers – that the Devil was their Father; He did not treat all Jews as the same; He drew distinctions that had salvific consequences.

            In any event, every time IANS assists at the Lil’ Licit Liturgy (he doesn’t get to assist at the Real Mass like you do in N’Awlins) he prays for the conversion of the Jews but it is to be doubted the Hierarchy does for it seems to think that Jews do not need to accept Jesus as their Saviour to attain unto Salvation.

          • You ignore the Shoah. That is a little like trying to explain WW II without referencing WW I, or to discuss the invasion of France in 732 without ever mentioning Mohammed’s pseudo-religion. In the 40s Europe had acquiesced to a monstrous crime for which it was almost impossible to make atonement (and many Mohammedans eagerly participated in the execution of that crime). Something had to be done, and I agree with the solution found. I dismiss so-called “Palestinian” propaganda out of hand as something more rooted in traditional Mohammedan hatred for all Jews than in any just cause.

            I mentioned the “relative peace” of the whole area dominated by Mohammedans, including the Holy Land, in what I wrote above. The fact is for centurie they couldn’t practice the mandates of their faith because European colonial powers frowned on slitting throats, beheading, stoning, rape, child and wife abuse, etc. Once they threw off the shackles of European domination and then got oil money in the 70s, their Mohammedan show took to the road once again, this time on steroids. (You may remember that Belloc explained this in his 1937 book The Crusades: The World’s Debate: “The story must not be neglected by any modern, who may think in error that the East has finally fallen before the West, that Islam is now enslaved — to our political and economic power at any rate if not to our philosophy. It is not so. Islam essentially survives, and Islam would not have survived had the Crusade made good its hold upon the essential point of Damascus. Islam survives. Its religion is intact; therefore its material strength may return.”)

            I see the “change in teachings” you mention more as a change in tone, one motivated by better understanding of Scripture and of the lessons of history, i.e. an authentic development of Catholic understanding of God’s will. It occurred to many, among them Jacques Maritain, that pogroms, for just one example that of 1391 in Valencia, could at least in part be traced to Catholic preachers like St. Vicente Ferrer. They reasoned that this approach to communal life in Europe helped explain the shocking and shameful inaction of large numbers of European Catholics between roughly 1932 and 1945. It had been a horrendous failure of faith and it had to be addressed by the Church. Let’s be clear, though: Nostra Aetate does not say that Jews needn’t accept Christ. That is, however, what this new document seems to imply if not explicitly say. (Of course, it hasn’t the authority of Nostra Aetate.)

          • Nostra Aetate wasn’t an ‘authentic development of Catholic understanding of God’s will’. It was an overturning of what the Church had always taught regarding Judaism.

            http://www.ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/documents-and-statements/roman-catholic/second-vatican-council/na-drafts/1026-1964march

            Excerpt:
            “May all, then, ensure that in their catechetical work or in their preaching they never present the Jewish people as one rejected, cursed, or guilty of deicide nor do teach anything that could give rise to hatred or contempt of the Jews in the hearts of Christians.
            For all such words or actions would be contrary to the will of Jesus Christ, who embraces Jews and Gentiles with one and the same love.”

            This indeed overturned what the Church had always held; that the racial cult of pharisaical Judaism was rejected by Christ, as He rejected all pagan cults, and that the Jews were (as the Gospels attest) guilty of calling down His blood upon themselves and their descendants. That moment on Calvary supersedes the shoah and any other crime, mass murder or otherwise, in all of recorded and unrecorded history.

            Christ did not embrace Jews and Gentiles AS pharisaical Jews and pagan Gentiles. Christ universally embraced and embraces those who ACCEPT Him as the Son of His Father, Yahweh, and as universal Redeemer.

            So, when the driving ideology is racial supremacy and global dominion, as is the case with pharisaical, rabbinical Judaism, one can only deduce from the Gospels and historical events, that indeed, at the highest echelons of financial and governmental power, conspiracies have existed and continue to exist today. Now you know where I stand. Enough said.

          • “So, when the driving ideology is racial supremacy and global dominion, as is the case with pharisaical, rabbinical Judaism, one can only deduce from the Gospels and historical events, that indeed, at the highest echelons of financial and governmental power, conspiracies h ave existed and continue to exist today. Now you know where I stand.”

            Yes, I know and knew EXACTLY where you stand. I asked before that you not reignite the controversy at 1P5 with this brand of loathsome and degrading conspiratorial blather. I’ll ask you nicely once again to finally desist.

          • Maybe the reason Modern Popes refuse to try and convert The Jews is because Israel is opposed to Jesus Christ and His plan of Salvation and Sanctification but it is interested in its racial supremacism and what it believes to be its still unique status as the chosen people of God and that has led Israel to become an insane and evil state which has The Samson Option it is willing to use to try and destroy the world if it thinks its existence is threatened.

            Part of the Samson Option includes Nukes targeted at Rome (Gee, what could possibly be the reason?) but Christian Zionists don’t care about that existential threat but just imagine of Italy had nukes targeted at, say, Tel Aviv?

            ++++++++++++++++++++++++
            An Israeli professor and military historian hinted that Israel could avenge the holocaust by annihilating millions of Germans and other Europeans.

            Speaking during an interview which was published in Jerusalem Friday, Professor Martin Van Crevel said Israel had the capability of hitting most European capitals with nuclear weapons.

            “We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets of our air force.”

            Creveld, a professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, pointed out that “collective deportation” was Israel’s only meaningful strategy towards the Palestinian people.

            “The Palestinians should all be deported. The people who strive for this (the Israeli government) are waiting only for the right man and the right time. Two years ago, only 7 or 8 per cent of Israelis were of the opinion that this would be the best solution, two months ago it was 33 per cent, and now, according to a Gallup poll, the figure is 44 percent.”

            Creveld said he was sure that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wanted to deport the Palestinians.

            “I think it’s quite possible that he wants to do that. He wants to escalate the conflict. He knows that nothing else we do will succeed.”

            Asked if he was worried about Israel becoming a rogue state if it carried out a genocidal deportation against Palestinians, Creveld quoted former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan who said “Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.”

            Creveld argued that Israel wouldn’t care much about becoming a rogue state.

            “Our armed forces are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that this will happen before Israel goes under.”

            ++++++++++++++++++++++

            Christian Zionists, whether of the John Hagee variety or the Neo-Con Catholic variety (those who accuse the Church, Bible, and Tradition of anti semitism) play right into the hands of the insane devils who rule Israel.

            But the real problem according to the Neo-Con Catholics is anti semitism not the Messias-Deniers and Holocaust-Deniers who target Rome with Nuclear Weapons.

            The sad thing is that more than a few Neo-Con Catholics would have choose Israel over Rome if it came down to an existential stand off for, in their hearts, they are zionists.

        • And, par for the course, the triumphant zionist ideology is that the Church was at fault and the Jews were innocent.

          The One True Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church is sempiternally standing before some Caiaphas in whatever age it finds itself and the verdict is always the same – guilty.

          Of course, that is to completely ignore the warnings of Civilta Cattolica which, about forty years before Hitler became Chancellor, warned all of Europe that their failure (Nations) to deal rightly with the Jewish question would result in the Jews facing unimaginably bad consequences owing to their – Jews – actions.

          Reply
          • Just can’t leave your idée fixe alone, can you? Here is a suggestion. Instead of riding this hobbyhorse till its legs fall off from overuse, try reading this long and detailed volume — A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad. It may help you come to terms finally with the IANS question.

          • Johnny. That which you label idee fixe, by definition, can not be left alone and so your error must be corrected – which you could do your own self by observing IANS has a healthy obsession with the truth; but, you do not seem too keen on accurate definitions if one observes how you deal with others and their putative anti semitism.

            You prolly will not be surprised to learn IANS has no intention of reading what a Messiah-Denier has to say about anti semitism anymore than IANS would be interested in reading what Joseph Goebbels had to say about Judaism.

            If at any time you think you’d like to define anti semitism, we will be happy to read your definition, until such time, those of us you think anti semitic continued to be mired in the truth.

            1 Thess 2:15 teaches that Jews are the enemy of mankind and given your weltanschauung, you are constrained to label Saint Paul an anti semite, well?

            Jesus Christ (John 8:44) tells the Jews (messias-deniers) that Satan is their Father and given your weltanschauung, you are constrained to label Jesus Christ an anti semitic, well?

            IANS is not interested in additional reading concerning what Messias-Deneirs have to say vis a vis the ineluctable consequences of their racial supremacism for he is quite aware of the Talmud and its teachings that Jesus Christ is the bastard son of the whore, Mary, who, while she was menstruating, was raped by a roman solder and that Jesus Christ was justly executed for blasphemy and is now eternally in Hell submerged in boiling shit nor is he interested in reading about the Messias-Deniers teaching Christians have no spiritual souls but are like animals and that they can be cheated with impunity nor is he interested in their false and superstitious religion nor is he interested in submitting to the ieee fixe that the Messias-Deniers are are elder brethren when, since 70 AD, their religion was destroyed (where is their temple and sacrifices? and no fair observing they have reassembled the Sanhedrin and are preparing to rebuild the temple and sacrifice a red heifer)

            But, we know how the political accommodation between the recent Vicars of Christ and The Synagogue of Satan works – they make insane irrational demands and scream ANTI SEMITISM if we do not accede to their demands and we change the prayers of our sacred Mass to please the Messias-Deniers but we never tell them to excise their hateful teachings of Jesus Christ nor do we demand that change their prayers which seek our condemnation.

            Do you know what those prayers say, Johnny?

            No, IANS is not interested in forever standing in judgment before Caiaphas confessing guilt for the One Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church has not one thing to apologise for vis a vis the Messias-Deniers who also are holocaust-Deniers but you, Johnny, are interested in confessing guilt – not yours to be sure, but confessing guilt for others, all of those crummy Catholics who lived and possessed the one true Faith before the recent and glorious revolution which resulted in our current political accommodation with they who are not Messias-Deneirs and Holocaust-Deniers.

            Can their be easier targets imagined?

            Well, one supposes so but attacking the morality of long-dead Catholics, unable to defend/explain themselves is truly a cheap thrill – even though it does tend to win the favor of the enemies of the Church established by Jesus.

            Here is link you will not read but lurkers might; it is to a series of editorials by La Civilta Cattolica (Catholic Civilisation) and they were written by brilliant Jesuits and they include a chilling warning about the Messias-Deniers.

            Try to concentrate, Johnny.

            Here is the Catholic Church, in its official paper created by a Pope, warning the nations of Europe that if they did not settle the Jewish Question and if those nations continued to treat them as you now desire they be treated, then the Jews would face consequences unlike any they had ever faced- and these editorial were written about forty years before Hitler was named Chancellor and so you, Johnny, despite the Bible, Ecclesiastical action, Tradition, and orthodox Papal Praxis, routinely and continually try to blacken the reputation of the One True Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church by charging it with anti semitism which is a VERY odd way for a putative trad to act but there can be no doubt you take great pride in what you do.

            Here is the link

            http://tinyurl.com/ogfjykq

          • I read as far as the end of your second paragraph. That’s enough. I know all I need to know about IANS. Bye.

          • Sayanora.

            For the lurkers interested in the captious claim that the Messias-Deniers are our elder brothers, here s link to a typical pre V2 source once popular in Seminaries.

            It is to be greatly doubted any seminarian reads such truth anymore for it teaches that Judaism is a superstitious religion.

            See pages 28-30 at the link and save the link and read through it at your lesiure for it will be a spiritual vaccination against modernism with all of its malign machinations and novelties.

            http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.ah4lky;view=2up;seq=38

      • I do not know too much about Vatican II… the Pope that opened it is Saint now, isn’t he?
        Perhaps much of it “is” good , but dragons took the freeway and turned it into multiple bads… What do you think?

        Reply
  3. Well, Pope Francis has no interest in converting Evangelical Protestants or any other Christian denomination to Catholicism, so why bother with the Jews? Isn’t this rejection of the Great Commission just a continuation of Vatican II’s liberalizing effects?

    Reply
  4. Thanks Fr. Kocik helping us understand our Jewish history. What should we be doing now about converting our Jewish brothers? According Wikipedia “Pope Benedict XVI in his book Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week has suggested that the church should not be targeting Jews for conversion efforts, since “Israel is in the hands of God, who will save it ‘as a whole’ at the proper time.”

    Pope Francis evidently agrees with this. And I would also agree with Pope Francis but not for the same reasons. The Catholic Faith has, particularly since Vatican II, become highly secularized and removed from God. Until we again rediscover our orthodox beliefs and practices we should not expect or want our Jewish brothers to convert to a religion that , in practice, is so empty of content and so hypocritically proclaimed.

    Reply
    • “we should not expect or want our Jewish brothers to convert to a religion..” Then why should anyone convert all? Judaism is a race as much as a religion, and the religion for may is just as empty as modern day Catholicism. This entire conversation amazes me. The call to everyone, Jew, Gentile, etc, is to convert to Christ. You have to read the New Testament with your eyes bandaged to miss that. As for Benedict and Francis, the same applies. A mitre does not make you an exegete, most obviously.

      Reply
      • …”we should not expect or want our Jewish brothers to convert to a religion..” Then why should anyone convert all?”

        Good point accel. Pope Francis seems to have the same opinion: “we don’t need no proselytizing here” as it wouldn’t be in the ecumentical spirit.

        My point was why proselytize when you really don’t believe what you proclaim as this would be selfish and hypocritical.

        Reply
  5. Once a contract is FULFILLED what becomes of it? Is it still in force or is it redundant and obsolete? The passages from the New testament which Fr Kocik fails to cite, and which deal with this subject amply, could not be clearer:

    Heb 7,18 “There is indeed an abrogation of the former commandment, because of the weakness and unprofitableness thereof: 19 For the law brought nothing to perfection: but the introduction of a better hope, by which we approach to God.”

    Heb 8,6 “But now he hath obtained a better ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better testament, which is established on better promises. 7 For if the former had been faultless, there should not indeed a place have been sought for a second. 8 For finding fault with them, he saith:

    *Behold, the days shall come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new testament with the house of Israel and with the house of Juda, 9 Not according to the testament which I made with their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt: for they continued not in my testament: and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. 10 For this is the testament which I will make to the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord: I will give my laws into their mind, and I will write them in their heart: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people: 11 And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying: Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest of them: 12 Because I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins I will remember no more.”

    13 Now in saying a new, he hath made the former old. And that which decayeth and groweth old, is near its end.”

    Eph 2,11 “For which cause, be mindful that you being heretofore Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh, made by hands: 12 That you were at that time without Christ, alienated from the society of Israel, and strangers to the covenants, having no hope of the promise, and without God in this world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus, you, who some time were afar off, are made near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and breaking down the middle wall of partition, the enmities in his flesh: 15 Abolishing the law of commandments in decrees: that he might make the two in himself into one new man, making peace, 16 And might reconcile both to God in one body by the cross, killing the enmities in himself.”

    The OP also fails to make the distinction between the two Laws given to Moses. The first covenant on Sinai where the Ten Commandments were given was meant to be the only Law. But when Israel failed to keep it by worshipping the golden effigy of Apis, God inflicted a second Law on them (deutero nomia) in punishment for their sin. This covenant was not eternal, but was bilateral and dependent upon them keeping their part of it. This they failed to do which is why God promised a New Covenant which would replace the one they had broken. While the Decalogue still stands to this day as a Law for all the peoples of the world, the second Law was abolished by Christ’s victory on the Cross as explained in Eph 2.

    Consequently the barrier of division between Jew and Gentile has been broken down by Christ’s death on the Cross and the two peoples have been reconciled into one new man – one Body – in the Church, which is the New Israel of God (cf Lumen Gentium).

    The Church is most certainly not grafted onto the vine. It is the gentiles who are grafted onto the vine which is the Church. That One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church was originally entirely comprised of Jews. It was only 15 years or more after its foundation that the gentiles were grafted in. Those Jews were the faithful remnant of Israel who did not reject God, who did not despise His covenant – written in the Blood of His only begotten Son. They were the vine of Israel rooted in Christ, onto whom the gentiles were grafted. The fact that many/most Jews became branches which were cut off the vine and discarded for their lack of belief is secondary. They can still be grafted back on through repentance,faith and conversion, as can the rest of the unbelieving world.

    But in the meantime, the words of Our Lord and Saviour stand: “He who rejects the Son, rejects the Father.”

    Reply
  6. Michael Hoffman’s latest instructive writing regarding the Vatican’s “The Gifts and Calling of God are Irrevocable” is available at revisionisthistory. org.

    Reply

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