"..Paul shows that God is abundantly able to transform the hearts of Jew and Gentile alike, and to grant to every believer in Christ the blessings promised to Israel. He repeats Isaiah's declaration concerning God's people: “Though the number of the children of Israel, be as the sand of the sea, A REMNANT shall be saved". -AA p 379
*read spiritual Israel, both Jew and gentile.
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(Make sure to look up these Bible passages)
Read Romans 2:28-29, Romans 9:8 and Galatians 3:7. The promise was first given to literal Israel, representing the immature, incomplete law identified as the old covenant. Then after the crucifixion, the old, immature covenant and order of the literal went on to the spiritual, representing the mature law of the new covenant. Read Hebrews chapter 7-10.
The fuller, more complete promise encompass both literal jews and Gentiles. See Galatians 3:26-29 and Ephesians 3.
Christ made the law more complete, identified as the law of the new covenant, encompassing all in the faith of Christ Jesus. (Galatians chapter 3).
Christ came to tear down all these outer barriers, the ceremonial laws, the shadows, the types that pointed to the more complete: the antitypical. See Galatians 3.
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All Israel means all who have faith in Christ Jesus. The gentiles are grafted in to what is now referred to as spiritual Israel. God is no respecter of persons. (Romans 2:11).
So we are not saved by nationality or race, not by genes, not by gender etc. But by faith, not representing the outer, shallow factors, but the inner man, the spiritual, the heart.
A mindset still under the old covenant law, will focus greatly on the literal (the law of the letter), which included the more shallower factors like ancestry, nationality, race. See Galatians 3:26-29. And Hebrews chapter 7-10. This is described as the law of death in Romans 8.
However, we will find the everlasting promise also in the Old Testament. No one could be saved under the old covenant, not even literal Israel. They had to accept the Messiah and be saved by having faith in Him by looking forward to the day when the Messiah would fulfill the prophecies and the promise. As we look back to Christ's' atonement and sacrifice on the cross, by faith, so that we may all be saved and sanctified by grace through faith. See John 3:16 and Hebrews 11.
God wants everyone saved, just as we should want everyone saved, as in sanctified on the straight and narrow path, so we can become a brotherhood of believers of same faith. Many will sadly refuse this gospel of salvation, because it involve to also carry one's own cross, which is the narrow path. Many have died unsaved, so we can not blind our eyes to the fact that God does not force anyone, and that many reject Him and end up lost. Fortunately, hell will be total annihilation and not everlasting torment as many sadly still teaches. Although there will be a punishment prior to this.
Read:
"Hell is literal, but...." See also the article and illustrations in
"The True Carriers of the Flame". for more on this.
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