Jane, the connection you made with Israel was flawed. I provided clear evidence showing that all of Israel was intended to be a nation of kings and priests.
Agree or disagree - that is what was intended
What was God’s purpose for those kings and priests? Why did Israel have a temple and a priesthood?
Go back to the beginning and tell me why God made his promise to Abraham in the first place….?
What’s happened here is that you’ve tried to use Israel as a basis for supporting the idea of a separate, elite group of saints reigning with Christ from heaven but that simply doesn’t hold up.
You're not there yet.
Just for clarity…..what did Paul say about literal Israel after the execution of Jesus and the continuing persecution of the Christians, as he himself was heavily involved in that persecution himself before his conversion. What did Paul come to realize under the power of God’s spirit and the continued guidance of the resurrected Jesus?
The nation of Israel had lost the plot long before Jesus made his appearance. God had only one reason to keep them in existence….and that was to produce his Messiah…..and he gave them first dibs at attaining the role of “kings and priests”….but the nation as a whole rejected Christ resulting in God rejecting them. He chose a new nation to serve his purpose.
At at Rom 2:28-29 Paul wrote
“For he is not a Jew who is one on the outside, nor is circumcision that which is on the outside upon the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one on the inside, and his circumcision is that of the heart by spirit, and not by a written code. The praise of that one comes, not from men, but from God.”
At Gal 3:29, he states that all who belong to Christ, who are members of his body, anointed by God’s holy spirit, are in fact Abraham’s seed and therefore also “Jews”, that is, spiritual Jews.
God changed what it meant to be a ”Jew”….no longer proven with lineage to Abraham by blood, but now “sons of Abraham“ in imitation of his faith.
Rom 9:6-8….
However, it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who descend from Israel are really “Israel.” 7 Neither are they all children because they are Abraham’s offspring; rather, “What will be called your offspring will be through Isaac.” 8 That is, the children in the flesh are not really the children of God, but the children by the promise are counted as the offspring.”
Those who accepted Jesus as Messiah would now be seen by God as “Abraham’s offspring”. So not literal Jews and literal Jerusalem are considered by God to be his people or the place where his kingdom would be established. After their rejection and murder of his son, a new nation of “spiritual Jews” was chosen to replace the faithless nation who descended from Abraham.….this new nation who would obey him and keep his commandments, were now considered as Abraham’s offspring. Lineage meant nothing anymore. (Matt 3:7-10)
Just a literaI Israel were set apart as God’s people, so these spiritual Jews are set apart as God’s spiritual nation….and just as literal Jews had kings and priests, appointed by God to direct his people, so spiritual Israel would serve in that capacity…the new nation of people who would become “priests and a holy nation” as literal Israel should have been. “Types and shadows”.
”The Israel of God” (Gal 6:16) was made up of both Jewish and gentile believers in Christ. Literal Jerusalem and it’s temple were no longer relevant to God’s purpose once the Messiah had been sacrificed.
The “holy land” today is drenched in innocent blood, rendering it unholy to God who has never sanctioned a war since Israel had a military force to defend its territory. (Isaiah 1:15) When God gave his people and their land over to gentile domination, they could not have a military force, so anyone who sees Israel of today as in any way relevant to God’s purpose, is barking up the wrong tree. Their alliances with nations whose worship they despise tells an ancient story…..God punished his people for doing that instead of relying on their God to give them the victory. They gave him so many grounds for ‘divorce’……God’s purpose in connection with the faithless literal nation of Israel is finished. (Matt 23:37-39)
