Thursday, October 12th | God's Chosen People

Hello, everyone. Today is Thursday, October the 12th. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abaddon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. If you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028, or you can email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

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Absolutely nothing less than five stars. Really appreciate that because it helps us keep this conversation going as long as we possibly can. And the verse of the day today comes from Romans 11, verses 1 through the first part of verse 2. I say then, has God cast away his people?

Certainly not. For I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away his people whom he foreknew. And I think that's really interesting and kind of the key where you said that whom he foreknew. This is not some arbitrary choice on or some arbitrary choice that God made. It's based on his foreknowledge. He has a divine plan. He has a purpose for Israel. And so his choices are not haphazard. Same in our lives. He doesn't just choose randomly on this random number generator of life. We just have to deal with the cards that were dealt.

You know what I mean? He's got a plan for all of us. Right.

Yeah. God has a plan and everything. And it's so appropriate that we're talking about this today, especially in light of yesterday's episode and what we're going to talk about today, the events going on over in Israel. Many of our viewers are aware of what's happening, but just to remind ourselves that God is not done with Israel. God has not removed them as his chosen people.

They are still the chosen people of God. And we need to view the nation of Israel as such. Dr. Shaw, I know that you—oh, by the way, for those who may be listening who are used to our regular format, for the rest of this week, we're going to have Dr. Shaw in the intros for the entire episode, because we want to really devote the time that a topic like this deserves. It's something that is really on Dr. Shaw's heart. By extension, it's also on our heart. And we want it to be on your heart as well, because what's happening in Israel right now—we said it yesterday—really is history in the making. We have a privileged front row seat through technology, through the news, through even this radio show, to seeing history being written. And Dr. Shaw, I know Israel is something that's very near and dear on your heart.

Dr. Shaw Yeah, of course. Last we heard is that now the Gaza border is sealed again. So after all these three to four days of trying to make sense of this tragedy, this massacre, this evil, and hundreds upon hundreds of people dying, that now finally, the border is secure. And the war is far from over. In fact, it's just begun. And, of course, the US is sending military assistance to Israel and is standing behind Israel, for which I am very, very happy and proud to be an American, and that we will continue to take our stand.

Historically speaking, our stand has always been with Israel, so we'll do that again. Dr. Justin Marchegiani That's right. Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah. I think, you know, people kind of lull themselves into this sense of complacency, like this is happening across the globe, and it doesn't affect me. This is, you know, it's tragic what's happening, but it's all the way over there, and that I'm far removed from it. But you said it on yesterday's episode, Dr. Shaw, these are people. These are families. These are lives that are being upended and torn apart and in some cases, in many cases, cut short.

Dr. Shah And worse than it has ever been. My friend also said something. He said, even the Nazis had a sense of, okay, we're gonna get them and then we're gonna do what we need to do, exterminate them. But here, there is no let's capture them and let's put the Jewish people away or whatever. No, this is just brutal killing of kids in front of their parents, parents in front of their kids, just a massacre. And we may just about say this is probably the worst in history, not as much because, of course, Holocaust, six million Jewish people were killed.

This may not be six million, but the way it's being done, it's horrific. Chris Yeah. And for those who didn't listen to yesterday's show, it is worth noting that the friend you're referring to is actually in Israel. He lives there.

Dr. Shah He's Jewish. Yeah. Yeah. He is very knowledgeable about his, his nation, his nation's history. And I've learned a lot from him. So those are his words. Those are his words because I'm just watching second hand on TV or in my app.

And that's how I'm getting the news. But firsthand, he is saying, this is horrific. And he's close to Tel Aviv. So he is hearing the sirens. He is having to go into the shelters. He was with his family. When I called him, he had just come from visiting his family.

And he said, everybody in our family is okay. But we do know one young man somehow related to him who may very well end up being on the front lines. Not right now, but when, if this thing continues, which seems like it will, the war is going to continue, then he will end up having to go fight.

And who knows what will happen at that point? Chris Yeah. You know, we hit on this a little bit yesterday, but there's a lot of people who, there's a lot of people, a lot of Christians, I should say, that struggle with the idea of the Jewish people being God's chosen people. And I like how you pointed this out yesterday, Dr. Shah, with all humility and grace, we can say that as outsiders looking in that sometimes being God's chosen people is not all that it's cracked up to be. Sometimes they have to suffer as the chosen people. You know, we brought up yesterday's episode about Tevye, who was on the fiddler of the roof. And he is so tired.

He's so exhausted with all that is going on. And then he looks up and says to God, I know, I know we are your chosen people, but once in a while, can't you choose someone else? So you can think about that. It's not a choice they made. It's a choice that was made for them. That's right.

That's right. God chose that people to carry out his promise to the world. And we just thought today and maybe a little bit tomorrow too, we can talk a little bit more about the theology behind why that is. You know what I mean?

Like, why did God choose to do it this way? What does that mean for the Jewish people today? What does that mean for us as Christians? You know, are we, are we replacing Israel? Are we not replacing Israel? Are we underneath Israel? Like where exactly do we and should we stand? Yeah.

Yeah. Those are very, very important questions. And they have lots and lots of implications, not just for preaching and teaching, but how you face a crisis even like this. Where do you stand?

How do you see it? Because unfortunately there are many theologians, pastors, people I admire, maybe even my heroes, they, I think come down on the wrong side of theology here. And so maybe we can address that a little bit. Yeah, let's do it.

Yeah, absolutely. So we, we've said this on the show before, but theology undergirds everything that you do and everything that you believe. It's not just what you believe in this area.

Everything is connected. Your theology, it connects to every other aspect of your faith. So understanding, you know, where Israel has come from and where they are and in relation to us as 21st century believers, you know, this, this is a very real, has very real implications for our day-to-day lives, our day-to-day faith. Even if we're not, you know, directly connected to Israel, we are spiritually connected. So I guess maybe just starting, I guess, starting from the top down, Dr. Shah, we know, because we've talked about it on the show before, that you are staunchly in favor of the church has not replaced Israel.

Why would you say that is? Well, because the promises that God made to Israel were unconditional. And what some theologians have done even coming to the reformation is that they have the idea that we have now replaced Israel and the promises that were given to Israel are now spiritually applied to the church.

And I disagree with that. Too many specifics have been given about the land for us to then go and say, Oh, no, no, no, no. This is about spiritual. This is about the spiritual descendants of Abraham. Oh, look at what Paul says in the book of Romans that or Galatians that we are the seed of Abraham.

So we are not necessarily just the Jewish people. In fact, those promises have been abrogated. Abrogated means you go back and you rethink based on the new evidence or the new input.

You change the past. That's an important, I think that's important what you, what you pointed out, because you're saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, you're saying that this isn't a ethical or logical argument. You're saying that there's no evidence in the text that supports this view, what they're saying. Right. Right. I believe that that's not the case. There's nothing there that, that should cause us to think that these promises have been abrogated, have been changed, and that Israel is no longer, Israel is like anybody else. Now, in one sense, they are like anybody else. We know that because salvation has always been, and I'm going back to the beginning of time, has always been through the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world, who is the second person, the Godhead, who is Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, the one who came 2000 years ago.

Okay. Salvation has always been through him. So if someone were to say, well, you know, Noah and his family were saved by obedience getting on the boat and this people, these people were saved by this or the sacrifices. That's how they were saved.

You would say no. It's a form of dispensationalism. None of there are a lot of dispensationalists who will say, no, no, no, we always believe Jesus Christ is the only way and has always been. But if you press them and, and hold their feet to the fire, they will have to admit that in different phases of history, salvation, of course, was always by Jesus Christ, but the way it was presented to the people who were there is through the ark or is, was through the sacrifices or was through some other means. And I definitely categorically dismiss or, and reject that view. Because once you begin to do that, then yes, you can claim that it's always through Jesus Christ, but for them, they didn't understand everything. I say they understood.

Yeah. Cause then how could you say that Jesus is once, but also for all? Cause he would, I mean, truly, if that were the case, if dispensationalism were true and God saves through different means, then Jesus would have to be just for some, right? Because he wouldn't have been for them.

Not the ones in the past. I mean, if, even if they use that line of reasoning that yes, it was always Jesus's death, the mode of salvation was different. So Jesus's death would not have been the means to salvation. And then there, there would be, there truly would be other paths to God apart from Christ.

Right? That seems like a, an outrageous opinion for us. Well, dispensationalism won't say that.

They will say, no, no, no. It's always been through Christ. Just because the, the, the presentation is this in this particular dispensation does not mean that it was some other way than Christ.

It's always Christ. But for these people in this period of time, like Adam and Eve in the garden, it was don't eat the fruit. Noah, get in the boat. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the covenant or something of that sort. Moses and the people of Israel is the law.

So again, I'm being very simplistic there. I would say, you know, you can say that, but the way you're presenting that gospel in that period, it does not line up with the evidence. It does not line up with the scriptures, right?

In fact, we're writing a book, I mean, a series of books on this. We're talking about the portal Evangelium, which is the first gospel in Genesis 3.15. It's already given the seat of the woman is going to crush the head of the serpent.

And the serpent of course is going to strike at his heel. That right there is the gospel. The gospel was not don't eat the fruits, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The gospel was always, once the sin came in, that now this is going to come and you have to wait for it. And Eve kept thinking she was the one who's going to carry the seed of the woman. And she was sorely disappointed in Cain. And she was sorely heartbroken with Abel.

And then again, disappointed with Seth in a different sort of way. The seed of the woman did not materialize until thousands of years later, when another woman by the name of Mary gave birth to the son of God through the spirit. And she was still a virgin. That's when the seed of the woman promise was finally fulfilled. So what I'm saying here is that it's always through Christ.

This has been, always will be before his coming, since his coming. So the promises that God made to Israel regarding land and regarding the material promises, they have not been changed. Right. Which, which all that to zoom out and say that we as Christians have not replaced Israel and therefore, I mean, not even if, even if you thought that we had, we should still be caring about what's happening today, but even more so now that these are still God's chosen people. These are still his, his children.

Right. And then it goes back, you know, you began the question, I sort of deviated from, from your question, but it goes back to Abraham. Abraham, God made a covenant with him, the father of the nation. He said, in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. This is Genesis 12, three.

And the blessing was the coming of the Messiah and Jesus Christ. That's the reason why Satan has tried to destroy him through the ages. But God had vowed to Abraham that I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant. Now, if you abrogate that, then it's no longer everlasting, right? Exactly. That's a good point.

God, the, sorry, I got tripped up on myself. The Bible repeatedly talks about God keeping his covenant to thousands of generations. Right. Repeatedly talks about it being a promise, keeping covenant, keeping God. So if you cut that short.

Yeah. He's not, he's not like, uh, like the, the Darth Vader type to be like, all right, I'm altering the deal. And because I'm in power and because I'm in control, you kind of just have to go along.

You know, he doesn't just change the terms on us. And then that verse goes on to say, I have, um, I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and your descendants after you. Also, I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession.

And I will be their God everlasting possession. So either we believe this or we don't. Yeah. If then don't call it everlasting. That's true. Cause if you were a Christian and you're still coming, I think we hit on this a little bit yesterday too, but if you're a Christian and so you're talking about this conflict and you're like, well, I know it is, it is their land, but it's kinda, it's kinda difficult cause people, the Palestinians are there too. And it's just a very difficult thing. It's like either you believe it's the Jewish people's everlasting possession or you don't, you know, if it's their everlasting possession, then it shouldn't really be that complicated. I mean, yes, there's a lot of social, social, like political stuff going on, but this is God's word. And if it says that's their everlasting possession and that as far as theology goes, that brings up another important point. If you don't believe this is their everlasting possession, then you don't believe that part of God's word.

And if you don't believe that part of God's word, what else in God's word do you know? We have to start talking the inerrancy and which parts of the Bible we choose to believe and choose to obey. Now, of course, the ones who hold to the replacement theory when it comes to Israel, a theory of abrogation of the promises, they will, they will, they may not necessarily compromise inerrancy. They will say, no, we believe in inerrancy. We just believe that right there the promise was conditional.

And we say, no, the promise was not conditional. In fact, in Genesis 12, three, God gave another promise to Abraham, which was, I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you. And so through the centuries, people and nations have recognized this, this promise to the Jews, Jewish people and have blessed, have been blessed by God.

And those who have gone against them have faced the wrath. I believe one of the secrets of America's success has been our historic support of Israel. If you remember, President Truman actually wept when he was thanked for recognizing the newly formed state of Israel. He wept. You know, he held up a newspaper, I think it was, that said something about the new Cyrus, because he considered himself to be Cyrus. Just like Cyrus, when he came to power after Babylon, you know, Medo-Persian Empire took over the Babylonian Empire overnight. One of his first acts as the king of this new empire was to free the Jewish people, tell them to go home, go back home, live your lives, build your life, build your temple, build your city of Jerusalem, do what you need to do. So Truman holding up that paper or whatever, was to say, hey, I am the new Cyrus.

I have now done in my generation what Cyrus did in his generation. He helped the Jewish people go back and reclaim their land. And of course, on May 14th, 1948, the Jewish people did return to their homeland and became a nation again.

But were there other nations that didn't support that? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you want to look at the history of Jerusalem, there's some important dates to consider. We're talking about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. So we're talking about somewhere the 2100 BC era. Jewish people enter the Promised Land, Canaan, somewhere about the 1400-1500 BC, right?

Time kind of goes down before 0 AD, I guess you can say or 1 AD. And then from 1000 to 925 BC, the kingdom was established. The first temple was built in Jerusalem. Then 63 BC, Rome occupied Israel. Now, even prior to that, there were others who came through there. We know about Antiochus, Epiphanes, and all of them.

I'm not going to get into all the fine details. But AD 70, Jerusalem temple destroyed by the Romans 135 AD, Jewish nationalism ends and Jewish exile begins. And Jewish people are kicked out of their homeland again, this time out of Jerusalem, and they would be gone for almost 2000 years.

Yeah, that's insane. The exile, let's talk about the Babylonian exile, was barely a generation, 40-50 years. This one is going to be close to 2000 years.

So when God is talking about, listen, I'm going to curse him who curses you, he's really not joking around. And the people who were displaced by this, his Jewish people, that land, it really is, I'm thinking about being gone from 2000 years, like in the 1940s, when they finally got it back, like what a prize, what a payoff. What a historic moment that a lot of us, especially Christians, don't even really think about. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. I mean, they had so many battles, because with the coming of Islam, with the coming of the Muslim conquest of the Holy Land, which was in 638 AD now, and the building of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, with that, things changed radically, especially on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. 691, the Dome of the Rock was built in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount. I didn't realize it was that old. 691. Wow.

691 AD. Uh-huh. Okay.

Wow. And then let's jump down to the 19th century. And this is when you begin to hear about the Zionist Congress in 1897. You hear about the borders of modern Middle East are carved out by the British. This is about 1916.

Okay. So this is the 20th century. Following that, the British mandate over Palestine begins. The Britain creates Transjordan for the Arabs.

And then, of course, in 1929, Arab riots begin in Palestine. From 1933 to 1947, you have a lot of Jewish people who are now going home, coming home. They want to be in Israel. This is their land.

And about the same time, as you know, halfway across the world, not halfway up, probably for them, quarter of the way from Israel and Germany, Nazi Germany, Hitler is killing, gassing the Jewish people, as many as six million. So now it is like we need a home. We need a place that we can protect and live and live freely and don't have to live at the mercy of whoever we're rooming with. We just want our own land.

And so somewhere about that time, this begins to happen. And in 1937, there was an appeal partition plan of Palestine. 1939, British white papers restrict Jewish immigration. Not a good thing.

Pretty bad look. And then United Nations partition plan came in 1947. United Nations partition plan on how everything would be laid out.

And I wanted to maybe mention that real quickly. They wanted to make Jerusalem an international city, as I mentioned last time. Imagine someone else controlling your capital city. Imagine Washington, D.C. being in the hands of, I guess, Russia.

That's hard to wrap your brain around. It is, because we're so all individualism and sovereignty and all this stuff. And then imagine, like you said, imagine if Russia was like, we're going to decide what happens in D.C. Right.

I mean, that's crazy. Or Canada. Let's give it to Canada.

How would you like that? The Canadians are going to decide what happens in D.C. Just like we don't want to do anything to their capital city. I don't think they should be able to tell us how we're going to run our capital city. And then following that, in 1947, the United Nations, of course, does that. And then 1948 is declaration of the Jewish state and the Arab-Israeli war begins. This is 1948. And the Jewish law of return is enacted.

Jordan seeds West Bank. And then 1956 is the Sinai War. Very well known. I read a lot of books on that.

When I say a lot of books, I'm talking about two or three. Big names that later on went on to become very powerful political leaders in Israel's history. Following by, followed by 1967, the Six Day War. And then, of course, 1973 was a Yom Kippur War. I heard someone say what's happening right now in Israel is so much bigger than the Yom Kippur War.

Wow. So much bigger than the Six Day War. So just think for a moment. And I know if we're ignorant about history, this may be like, oh, okay.

But if you take some time to study what that means, what the Six Day War was about, what the Yom Kippur War was about, then it'll begin to sort of sink in what is happening in real time in Israel. I think we tend to think, okay, the canon of the Bible is closed. God's story is written. It's over.

Not realizing that, like, I think we even mentioned this when we did our episodes on the Reformation. Like, God's story is still going on. The canon of scripture is closed. That doesn't mean that God is not done working. The story of Israel is not over. It's being written right now. And if this is truly God writing it, then there's an immense amount of gravity that I think a lot of us Christians are missing. Like, it goes beyond pray for Israel, pray that they're all right.

It's like, this is the hand of God moving in a way that is extremely significant. Yeah. That we can watch in front of us. That we are taking part in. The canon may be closed. I mean, certainly we would say that, but we are living in the last chapter. We haven't gotten to the final brushstroke. I mean, we are within those pages.

Yeah. We almost think it's, I think it's weird and I'm trying to put it into words in real time, but it's like, okay, the canon is closed. One day, like the events of Revelation is going to take place again. This 2000 year window, that's all y'all.

Y'all figure it out till I come back. And I think Christians subconsciously think that. I think I've thought that in the past. It's odd. It is.

It is. And so it's time we get educated, biblically educated, but also study history, study the people that you can trust. Don't just read everything that's out there.

Don't just go to Barnes and Noble and pull out the book that is the shiniest and the ones in the best seller section or recommend a section because they may, that may not be good history, maybe biased history. I think right now there's a lot of bias history when it comes to America or Israel, it's biased history. And so once you understand that 1979 was, were the Israel Israeli or Egyptian Israeli peace agreement at Camp David, followed by 1987, the Intifada begins, which is, we're going to attack Israel to its core. This happened many, many times. We're going to maybe talk about that in the next show.

Let's do it. Go in detail there. And then a mass exodus of Jewish people from Russia begins. And then of course, then comes the Gulf war, which is maybe now coming into our present day history where Iraq, Jordan and PLO came up against Israel. So important for us, just like you said, Dr. Shah, to learn about what we believe, to learn about history and to learn our place in the timeline of the world.

If you guys have questions about what we talked about today, you'd like to get educated and learn more about Israel's history or even world history. Let us know by sending us a text at 252-58-25028. You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. You can partner with us financially on that same website. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clearview Today.