Is the Church Israel?

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InJesusItrust

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In a thread on Zionism I said that the Church is Israel and that Millennialism is false and another poster said that this is not Catholic teaching, and that God created the state of Israel. Now what is the teaching? I believe that Christian Zionism is founded upon the idea that Christ will rule physically from Jerusalem at the end of the age, which is false, right?

catholicknight.blogspot.in/2011/01/catholic-church-is-israel.html
 
InJesusItrust said:
In a thread on Zionism I said that the Church is Israel and that Millennialism is false and another poster said that this is not Catholic teaching, and that God created the state of Israel. Now what is the teaching? I believe that Christian Zionism is founded upon the idea that Christ will rule physically from Jerusalem at the end of the age, which is false, right?

catholicknight.blogspot.in/2011/01/catholic-church-is-israel.html
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Well, by the titled of the thread I assume you are looking for a working definition of “the Church”?

Briefly, the entire Church is called the Mystical Body by analogy with the natural body of man, which has its diverse acts because of the diversity of its members, as the Apostle teaches: The body of man has its head; analogically Christ is termed the Head of the Church.

St. Paul assigns to the head three proper functions, and these three he attributes also to Christ:
  1. its intimate union with all the members making one organic whole
  2. the pre-eminence of the head. It dominates the whole body. It is the watch, viewing the entire landscape, taking warning and giving notice.
  3. the head is the seat of life activity, the superabundant source from which activity goes to all the members of the body.
 
I am wondering if God recognizes a people who reject Christ as the people of Israel. That is, can anyone outside of visible or invisible communion with the Church be God’s people?
 
InJesusItrust said:
I am wondering if God recognizes a people who reject Christ as the people of Israel. That is, can anyone outside of visible or invisible communion with the Church be God’s people?
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I would direct you to the teachings of St. Paul:

Romans 9:30 through 11:36

St.Paul continued to pray for them (Romans 10:1); he would not pray for them if he knew that they were rejected without a chance of returning. He tries, at the cost of many painful efforts, to win some of them for Christ, and his endeavors are often crowned with success (Romans 11:14). It is unbelief which has broken them off from the vine; but faith can graft it back on (Romans 11:23).

St. Paul teaches us that the apostasy of the Israelites is neither absolute or final. In other terms, those who are unbelieving today can be be believers tomorrow, in any case, at the end of the world Israel will repent and will come back to the Church as a whole. Here there is a theological teaching and a prophecy; but the Apostle mingles with these some profound considerations concerning the supernatural providence and the inscrutable ways of God.
 
As I understand it the Jewish people will be converted at the end of time. Until then can they claim to be the people of Israel? When I read Catholic sources they claim that the Church is Israel.
 
InJesusItrust said:
As I understand it the Jewish people will be converted at the end of time. Until then can they claim to be the people of Israel? When I read Catholic sources they claim that the Church is Israel.
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Let us first speak of faithfulness. The claims of the Jews rest upon a misunderstanding. If they invoke the name of Abraham, as a palladium which is to shelter them from all evil, if they look upon the blood of Israel as a kind of sacrament which is to save them ex opere operato, without regard to personal dispositions, their error is complete and inexusable. It is to misunderstand the sense and the import of the divine promises. There is an Israel according to the flesh and an Israel of God: to the former nothing is due, to the latter belongs the promise. In the same way there is the carnal posterity of Abraham, and there is his spiritual posterity; the latter alone inherits the blessings: “All who bear the name of Israel are not of Israel; neither are all they that are the seed of Abraham, the children of Abraham.” (Romans 9:6-7) Sacred history furnishes the clear proof of these two facts. Among all the children of Abraham, Isaac only, the son by a miracle, the son of promise, inherits the blessings promised to the line of Abraham; Ishmail and the sons of Ketura have no part in it. The title of “child of Abraham” is therefore nothing in itself, and it is wrong to take advantage of it in opposition to God, who remains the master of his gifts and benefits. It is exactly the same in the case of Isaac. A new selection is being made among his children, and here God’s liberty of choice is still more evident. The same external circumstances accompany the conception and birth of the twin brothers. The only difference would be in favor of Esau, who was the first to see the light. Nevertheless, God’s choice, independent of all acquired right and all human consideration, falls on Jacob. (See Romans 9:11-13)
 
The Church is grafted onto Israel. Israel is the root and we are a branch, only a minor part of Israel. Try reading the Pauline literature.

Reb Levi
 
drafdog said:
The Church is grafted onto Israel. Israel is the root and we are a branch, only a minor part of Israel. Try reading the Pauline literature.

Reb Levi
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Please quote it then. I recall Jesus saying that He would give the kingdom to other people. I though that the Church is New Israel, and the Jews will be added back on later.
 
InJesusItrust said:
In a thread on Zionism I said that the Church is Israel and that Millennialism is false and another poster said that this is not Catholic teaching, and that God created the state of Israel. Now what is the teaching? I believe that Christian Zionism is founded upon the idea that Christ will rule physically from Jerusalem at the end of the age, which is false, right?

catholicknight.blogspot.in/2011/01/catholic-church-is-israel.html
Click to expand...
God is not finished with the Jews , nor with the land which He gave them in a Blood covenant. Today there exisits Jes who cannot hear or see whatJesus is until He comes again and then the scales will be removed. They will serve the Lord during the time of the Tribulation, having been marked and ar protected by God.

And then all the branches of the olive tree will be as one.

I understand that the catholic church strongly leans towrds almillinism, but leaves a door open to a end of a 7 year tribulation and then the 1000 year rule of Jesus in JERUSALEM

I see no sin in this view

But as always, ask you priest, read you catachism, and follow those instructions if that is what is willed by God for you. .

Scripture , as a clear reading, says what I wrote. Read the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John. John, the prophet, who was most beloeved by Jesus, the only one allowed to die a natural death . so that Jesus could send His Angel to him to write the TRUTH.
 
The Jews will be converted, but everything else you say sounds like dispensationalist theology.
 
Sometimes “Israel” is used to identify the race of Jews (“Isreal of the flesh”) and sometimes it refers to the People of God. In the Old Testement they were essentially one and the same, but in the new, according to St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, some Jews have been cut off and Gentiles have been grafted in. The Church is this Isreal–the People of God.

From the Second Vatican Council:
Lumen Gentium 9:
Israel according to the flesh, which wandered as an exile in the desert, was already called the Church of God.(96) So likewise the new Israel which while living in this present age goes in search of a future and abiding city (97) is called the Church of Christ.(98)
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(Note, the declaration Nostra Aetate, par. 4, also distinguishes the Church as the “new people of God” in contrast to the Jews.)

The political state of Israel cannot really be associated with either the “Israel of the flesh” or the new Israel, other than the fact that members of both groups live there. It’s just a nation like any other, with the same rights and duties.
 
Doxiemom said:
Some call it that. I call it Holy Scripture. It says what it says.
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Is that a fact?

Let’s start with Daniel Chapter nine (KJV) (the foundation of dispensationalist theology).

1. Dispensationalists say that there is a ‘church age gap’ between verse 26 and 27.
Where is the gap? IN THE TEXT.
It’s not there.

2. Dispensationalists say that the ‘prince that shall come’ in verse 26 is different than ‘Messiah the Prince’ of verse 25.
How do you know it is speaking of two different people from a simple reading of the text? Why would Daniel suddenly change his mind and start talking about a different person? How does this make logical and grammanical sense? Please find it IN THE TEXT.
It is an assumption. Daniel did not change the subject, he is still talking about the same Person. To ‘assume’ makes no grammanical or logical sense. It cannot be drawn out of the text.
Also:

**3.**Please find ANY referance of the ‘rapture’ in Scripture or in church history prior to the 19th century.
One cannot.

4. Dispensationalists (like Harold Wilmington of Libery University) say that during the millenniam, resurrected people and non-resurrected people with sin natures will live side by side on the earth.
PLEASE, find this ANYWHERE in the Bible.
One cannot.

5. Find ‘seven year tribulation’ in the Bible.
One cannot.

6. Find ‘revived Roman Empire’ anywhere in the Bible.
One cannot.

7. Please find anywhere in the Bible that says the Jews will return to the land in 1948.
One cannot.
 
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