Jeremiah 33:14-26 Is this only about the Catholic Popes/Priests & Christ the Branch ? No double meaning for the Jews also ?
Zechariah 13:1-3 If we see this as Christ [and how can we not ?] … then, what do we do with verses 2/3 ? Would that not disallow John’s vision of prophesy ? … unless we say it wasn’t prophesy, but only an allegory of ‘past tense’ fulfilled matters.
Technically this notion rests on the Dispensationalist idea that the nation of Israel is distinct from the Church (though they recognize an overlap between the two), and that God will fulfill His promises to national Israel. These promises include the land promises, which in the future result in a millennial kingdom where Christ, upon His return, will rule the world from Jerusalem for a thousand years.
The Church age is, in the classic Dispensationalist way of putting it, one of the parentheses, the ‘dispensations’, in God’s plan of the ages, which concerns the Jewish people. At the beginning of the Church age, dispensationalists hold, God turned aside from dealing with the Jewish people in order that a (primarily) gentile Church might be built up. After the Church is taken out of the picture by the Rapture, God will turn back to dealing with the Jewish people.
The Church meanwhile officially holds that the Mosaic covenant was fulfilled by the New Covenant in Christ. The practical purpose of the nation of Israel in God’s plans is now replaced by the role of the Church. There is an integral continuity between the Old and New Covenants rather than a rupture.
Nevertheless, the Church does
not follow
punitive supersessionism (what is usually called “replacement theology”) in that it does not see the Jewish people as being condemned and forsaken by God because of their rejection of Jesus and thus are effectively and completely irrelevant in terms of eschatology and Biblical prophecy. The New Israel, the Church, may now be entrusted with the fulfilment of the promises of the Old Israel, but this does not obliterate the identity of the Old Israel, nor deprive it from playing any role in God’s plan of the ages. Hence the common saying that one of the signs that signal the parousia is the acceptance by the Jews as a whole - though not necessarily every Jewish individual - that Jesus is the Messiah.
Following St. Augustine, the Church teaches that the Jewish people are an important reminder that the “
gifts and calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29). The persevering presence of Israel on earth is perhaps that best proof that God exists and that His covenant extends “
to a thousand generations” (Deuteronomy 7:9). The Church recognizes an ongoing and unique relationship between the Jewish people, God and the Church. Note however that we do not hold a
dual-covenant theology, which teaches that Jews may simply keep the Law of Moses while the Gentiles must become Christians to enter under the covenant. For example, in paragraph 9 of
Lumen Gentium (1964), it says that God “
chose the race of Israel as a people” and “
set up a covenant” with them, instructing them and making them holy. However:
All these things, however, were done by way of preparation and as a figure of that new and perfect covenant, which was to be ratified in Christ, and of that fuller revelation which was to be given through the Word of God Himself made flesh. “
Behold the days shall come saith the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel, and with the house of Judah…I will give my law in their bowels, and I will write it in their heart, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people…For all of them shall know Me, from the least of them even to the greatest, saith the Lord.” (Jer. 31, 31-34) Christ instituted this new covenant, the new testament, that is to say, in His Blood (Cf. 1 Cor. 11, 25), calling together a people made up of Jew and gentile, making them one, not according to the flesh but in the Spirit. This was to be the new People of God. For those who believe in Christ, who are reborn not from a perishable but from an imperishable seed through the word of the living God, (Cf. 1 Pet. 1, 23) not from the flesh but from water and the Holy Spirit (Cf. Jn. 3, 5-6), are finally established as “
a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people …who in times past were not a people, but are now the people of God.” (1 Pet. 2, 9-10)
And in paragraph 7 of
In Notes on the Correct Way to Present the Jews and Judaism (1985):
“
In virtue of her divine mission, the Church” which is to be “
the all-embracing means of salvation" in which alone "the fulness of the means of salvation can be obtained” (Unit. Red. 3); “
must of her nature proclaim Jesus Christ to the world” (cf. Guidelines and Suggestions, I). Indeed we believe that is is through him that we go to the Father (cf. Jn. 14:6) “
and this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent” (Jn 17:33).
Jesus affirms (ibid. 10:16) that “
there shall be one flock and one shepherd”. Church and Judaism cannot then be seen as two parallel ways of salvation and the Church must witness to Christ as the Redeemer for all, “
while maintaining the strictest respect for religious liberty in line with the teaching of the Second Vatican Council (Declaration
Dignitatis Humanae)” (Guidelines and Suggestions, I).
