Not wonder! Sorry about that WPM, that was my fault, I had another couple of verses I never posted behind it and I can't even think of which ones they were because I had fallen upon the two while reading your thread and considering a couple of things.
I would be scratching my head too
Just ignore me for now, if I can find the other verses I was curious about I will repost. I thought I saved them but apparently not.
I am not sure if these were the texts you were thinking of.
The Psalmist put it well in Psalm 73:1, “Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.”
Isaiah 48:1-2: “Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the LORD, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness. For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel; The LORD of hosts is his name.”
Isaiah 49:6: “And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.”
Designations and titles in Scripture often have a natural and ethnic meaning and a spiritual and heavenly meaning. It is important to recognize: the natural reality is never adequate to bring someone into a personal relationship with God. It carries no eternal worth. It simply gives one an advantage in regard to the exterior blessings of God – like knowing truth and being privileged to live in a godly environment.
The same personal terms that are used in the Old Testament to describe the visible congregation of God’s people are carried over into the New Testament to represent the invisible congregation of God. This is a common occurrence with designations like this. The application of common old covenant Israeli terms to the Church only serves to reinforce the oneness of God’s people throughout time.
Sometimes we have to prove ‘what is not’ before we can prove ‘what is’. The reason why this is especially important on this subject is because there is so much confusing teaching out there in Christian circles on this issue. It is crucial that we let the New Testament Scripture speak for itself and remove the theological haze hanging over this subject. Those of us who have engaged in serious debate with Dispensationalist advocates over the years have encountered a disturbing pattern with that camp: they often try to explain away the fuller revelation of Scripture (the New Testament) by their opinion of what the Old Testament teaches. It is as if the New Testament is less important, because it refutes their position and disallows their reasoning.
