(02-26-2022 03:00 PM)G-Man Wrote:  Having said this, I'll repeat (and believe I'm correct to say it) that TODAY the Church is God's ONLY chosen people--not any nation or government. And when it's appeared in the past (i.e. Old Testament scriptures about it) that God did have some chosen "nation" or "people" other than the Church, I'll also state my belief that such Old Testament references, point to the New Testament's fulfillment of them. For example, I'm sure we'll agree that God's requirement for sacrifices wasn't a valid "need" but merely a foreshadowing of what we all need-- Christ's final sacrifice that renders all others totally unnecessary.


Paul stated in Galatians 6:16 that the "Israel of God" even at THAT time, after Christ had been resurrected, was no longer the descendants of Abraham in the flesh, but only his descendants by Faith, which is the Church.

In the verses prior, Paul had been distinguishing between those who were still attempting to boast of being circumcised in the flesh (the Jewish people). And he contrasted them with those who had become a "new creation" in Christ" where it didn't matter if someone was or wasn't physically circumcised. Paul emphasized that those who were this new creation, were to live by "this rule" (being governed by Christ), and would have "peace and mercy be upon THEM, and the Israel of God". He was not talking about two different "new creations" but only ONE (which he'd just stated Christians were the "new creation" in the prior verse). The only new creation is the Church; the TRUE (and only remaining) Israel of God.

Old Testament Israel, like Old Testament Sacrifices, are foreshadowings of the real things they represent, that hadn't been yet fulfilled until Christ came. As a result, there was no longer a need for sacrifices of animals that weren't the true sacrifice necessary to conquer sin for all men. Christ was always and ONLY the true sacrifice for our sins. In the same way, God's ONLY "chosen" people weren't ever truly the physical descendants of Jacob which were merely a foreshadowing of the real thing: the Church of Christ, which is His ONLY real people-- the TRUE Israel of God.

And after Christ established His Church, the only place His Spirit now resides is in the physical bodies of all Human Beings regardless of their ancestry or history, who have become Christians, regardless of how it resided before in places (Temples). Since Pentecost, His Spirit resides wherever they are, in them; because they/we are all, in our physical bodies, Temples of God at the time we are baptized with Christ into His death to be raised up as a new creation with Him" as Paul clarifies in Romans 6.

You don't seem to grasp that literally everyone here agrees with that. We all agree that in Christ there is no one nation God has chosen and created like Israel in the OT. We all agree that Christians across the whole earth are the spiritual seed of Abraham by faith, and its no longer by the flesh like ancient Israel. We all agree that WE are the temple of God now in the church age, the spirit of God dwells within us, not with a temple made without hands or over a special chosen nation. We all agree that salvation is on an individual basis, not on a whole.

Whether Jew or Gentile, American African, black, white, male, female, etc we are ALL ONE in Christ. We all agree out salvation is by the death burial and resurrection of Christ alone, that He is the sacrifice for our sins and its no longer about a nation or animal sacrifices.

You are mile deep into a straw man that no one here believes, no one here argued and no one here remotely claimed.

None of that has anything to do with what we are talking about and what Paul wrote about in Romans chapters 1 and 2 and how God deals with a culture that rejects Him and He allows to slide further and further into sin and given them over to those vile lusts and affections.

If you really desire to split hairs for the sake of argument (as you always seem to do) you could conflate the two issues based on Bludragaons title alone, but he clearly is not suggesting the spirit of God dwells within a chose special nation as opposed to individual Christians across the globe. Nor is he suggesting America is the New ancient Israel in God's eyes in respect to how he deals with them and protects them or not. That is not what Paul was referring to in Romans 1 & 2 and that is not what we were discussing in this thread.