The Error of Dual Covenant Theology

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. Call 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks friends for joining us today on the Line of Fire.

This is Michael Brown, the number to call 866-34-TRUTH, 866-34-87884. It is Thoroughly Jewish Thursday, which means you've got Jewish related questions. We will give you Jewish related answers.

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I want to do a little teaching first. A very important subject. One that you don't hear taught a lot in the church. Sometimes people believe this but they don't say it out loud.

Others are not familiar with the concept. So I want to explain what we call dual covenant theology. Dual covenant theology. So, dual covenant theology is the teaching that Jews do not need Jesus in order to be saved since they already have a covenant with God through Abraham and or Moses. And if they're faithful to the covenant, they can live and die in right relationship with God. This is dual covenant theology.

I want to explain the error of that theology today. There are variations of dual covenant theology today which either state that there is no need to evangelize the Jewish people since they'll all be saved when Yeshua returns or that state that the Jewish people can't be held responsible for rejecting him when he came. And dual covenant theology is common in liberal Christian circles and little by little in Christian Zionist circles or I should say and more and more in Christian Zionist circles. So again, dual covenant is saying there are two covenants. There's one covenant that God has with the Jewish people and they can be right with God through that covenant.

They don't need Jesus. And then there is the covenant that God has made with the rest of the world through Jesus. So the Gentiles have to come through Jesus, but Jews have another way of being saved. This is an erroneous, dangerous theology.

It may be well intended, but it's absolutely erroneous. So why do people believe in dual covenant theology? Why do they hold to it? So there are several reasons as to why people can go in this direction. And they all come down to a love for the Jewish people that's not scripturally accurate. And for the most part, it's only Gentile Christians as opposed to Messianic Jews who hold to dual covenant theology. Because here as Jewish believers, we know we got saved through Jesus.

We know there's no other way of salvation outside of him. We want our people to believe. So interestingly, it is mainly Gentile Christians who hold to dual covenant theology.

So why do people hold to it? Some believers have a hard time with the concept of anyone being lost, in particular a religious Jew, and then by extension any Jew. After all, they say, aren't Jews the chosen people? Some believers are so grieved by the history of Christian antisemitism that they feel embarrassed even to share the gospel with Jewish people.

So they've over-repented. They have repented of the church's sins against the Jewish people in history, but now go on to the other extreme and say, well, we don't want to share Jesus with them. And since the Holocaust, and in light of European Christianity's ugly history of antisemitism, which prepared the ground for the Holocaust, a new era of sensitivity has arisen in which is considered almost immoral to tell Jewish people that they need Jesus to be saved. This is why dual covenant theology has risen in recent decades.

Also, some believers are moved by the beauty of Judaism and the power of Jewish tradition, and they believe that Jews have a valid way to God outside of Jesus, who they say is for the Gentiles and not the Jews. And then, dual covenant theology can be an extreme reaction to the error of replacement theology or supersessionism that says the church has superseded Israel in God's purposes. The church has replaced Israel in God's purposes.

So here's a quote that illustrates the point. God's covenant with the Jewish people endures forever. For centuries, Christians claimed that their covenant with God replaced or superseded the Jewish covenant. We renounce this claim. So these are Christians renouncing replacement theology.

Okay, good for that. We affirm that God is in covenant with those used in Christians. Specifically, the entrenched theology of supersessionism continues to influence Christian faith, worship and practice, even though it has been repudiated by many Christian denominations and many Christians no longer accept it. Our recognition of the abiding validity of Judaism has implications for all aspects of Christian life. This was a statement by the Christian Scholars Group on Christian-Jewish relations, cited in the book by John Merkel, Faith Transformed. So, on the one hand it's good they repent of replacement theology. It's good that they repent of the idea that God is through with Israel. It's bad that they say Jews simply need Judaism. They do not need to add Jesus to that. And another reason that some hold to dual covenant theology is that it avoids the offense of the cross. This way you're kind of at peace with everybody. You have your way, we have our way, and it avoids the offense of the cross. So, what are the dangers of dual covenant theology?

Primary dangers are that 1. Jews will be given a false sense of assurance of salvation. Hey, you're fine as is. Just practice Judaism. You don't need cleansing through the Messiah.

2. Christians won't share their faith with Jews. Why should we if Jews can be saved just by living as faithful Jews?

And 3. Jewish believers in Yeshua will be ostracized by the church and criticized for being proselytizers and for, quote, targeting Jews. It's fascinating that over the years when you have interfaith dialogue, Christians and Jews sitting together, the ones that normally get excluded are Messianic Jews.

In other words, the ones like Paul, Peter, John, Matthew. We are the ones that get excluded because we mess everything up. Because we're saying we're Jews and we found God through Jesus and we believe he's the only way for anyone to find God. And then the return of Yeshua will potentially be delayed. This is a danger of dual covenant theology because Israel will not be called to repent and to welcome back the Messiah. So, why do people hold to this biblically?

I've talked about emotionally and reacting to church history. But why would people hold to this? What are some of their errors? Well, they would say God made everlasting promises to Abraham and gave an everlasting covenant to Moses so that that can never be altered. And there's some truth to that and some error in that. Some would say, well, the Bible says all Israel will be saved. In the future, it's just going to happen. I talked to some Christian Zionists last year. I was shocked. I said, when do you share your faith with the rabbis?

He said, we don't. Do you believe they need Jesus? Yes, but in the end, they'll just be saved. It's like this automatic thing that's going to happen.

I was mortified to hear it. Romans 11 16 has been misinterpreted. If the branches are holy, the root also is holy. So, if the root is holy, then the branches also are holy. So, if the Jewish root is holy, then all the branches are holy. And by implication, if you're a Jew, then you have your own way to God. Again, these are some of the wrong ways of thinking. So, how do we respond to dual covenant theology? And obviously, I could teach this over a period of hours. I'm just condensing it into a few minutes and then we'll take you Jewish-related calls.

866-348-7884. So, what's a biblical answer to dual covenant theology? One, if Yeshua is not the Messiah of Israel, he's the Messiah of no one. Remember, he didn't come just as the Savior of the world. He came as the Messiah of Israel. He is the Savior of the world because he's the Messiah of Israel. He's not the Messiah of Israel. He came as the fulfillment of what's written in Moses and the prophets. If he's not the fulfillment of that, then he doesn't save anybody.

He's only the Savior of the world because he's first and foremost the Messiah of Israel. Secondly, the Gospels to the Jew first. Who changed that? Romans 1.16. Who changed that? Who took that out of the Bible?

Who said that no longer applies? The Gospels are the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first the Jew, then the Gentile. Third issue is that no one can be saved by the works of the law and there is no atonement for the Jewish people outside of Yeshua's but there was an atonement system set up for Israel. And absent of that atonement system there was no forgiveness of sins and that atonement system ultimately was imperfect pointing to the perfect sacrifice.

It was imperfect in that it had to be repeated year in and year out. Not only so, we can think about the reality of the divine judgment on the Jewish people in the first century because of the rejection of Jesus. Why was the temple destroyed? Why were our people scattered in judgment? It's because we rejected the Messiah in previous generations. We rejected the law of Moses. We rejected the Messiah and then we rejected the prophets and then we rejected the Messiah. So judgment came.

If we didn't need Jesus, if we could be saved outside of him, then why judgment on a whole generation for rejecting him? Also, another rebuttal to Replacement Theology is a consistent testimony of the book of Acts calling for Jewish repentance and speaking of Jewish guilt. Why didn't they tell their people, hey, you're good, just be faithful to the Torah, we'll go to the Gentiles. No, who did they preach to?

Their people. And they told them you need to repent and put your trust in Jesus the Messiah. And they warned those who don't listen to the last great prophet, Jesus, will be cut off. Read Acts 2, read Acts 3. Just read through all the sermons to the Jewish people in the book of Acts. Do we know better than the apostles?

Did God change things because of bad aspects of church history? Also, why was Paul's heart broken? In Romans 9, why was his heart broken for his people? Why did he wish he could be cut off for the sake of his brothers and sisters who were now lost and outside of God's grace because they rejected the Messiah? If all they had to do was observe the Torah, if he could save his people, they're zealous for God but not according to knowledge. They sought righteousness by observing the law but fell short. If you get in just by observing the law and being a faithful Jew, why was he grieved for it?

Why was he broken for it? Why did he wish that he himself could be cut off for the Messiah? And then there's the testimony of a multitude of Jewish believers around the world like me.

Salvation for the Jewish people is through the Messiah just like salvation for the Gentiles. Do not withhold the good news of the Gospel from the lost sheep of the house of Israel. We'll be right back with your calls. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. That beautiful Hebrew singing reminds us it is thoroughly Jewish Thursday, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-34-87-884. All Jewish-related questions warmly welcomed on our Thursday broadcast.

Again, for those watching, we are audio only today so radio, YouTube, Facebook, you hear me the same but watching you have to picture the smiling face. Okay, we go to the phone starting in Rogers, Arkansas. Lana, welcome to the line of fire. Shalom, doctor. Shalom.

I had you on speaker, sorry. Yes, my question is regarding the heaven. I know in my reading that there's at least three heavens and as above so below. So in just observing, I believe the earth is the first hell and because so above so below so I because of all the suffering that everyone that I know has gone through on this earth, I feel that the earth is the first hell.

Yeah, Lana, obviously you've encountered pain in your own life and seen many people close to suffer and it's evident in the sound of your voice and the tears. Theologically, though, I have to differ for a number of reasons. So let me explain. Number one, when the Bible speaks of third heaven, Paul references it in 2 Corinthians, the 12th chapter, or in Ephesians 6, spiritual warfare in heavenly places. So we would understand by that concept that you have the physical realm here. So physical earth and the air above us be the first heaven. And then the second heaven would be the spiritual realm of the battle with demons and angels. And then the third heaven would be where God dwells. There are other ancient Jewish conceptions that there were seven heavens and things like that. But with three heavens, that would be the understanding. The earth is the earth and the earth was the place where to be fruitful, multiply. The earth is not hell. And when you reference as it is in heaven, so it is below, that's actually a misquotation. You took kind of a thought from the Bible and then changed its actual meaning.

So we can often do that. We hear things and we think it's biblical. But the earth is the place where we come to know God by faith. The earth is a place of great blessing and also great pain. God's destiny for the earth is that it will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the word is covered the sea.

That there will be no war, that there will be no pain and that ultimately there will be a new heaven and a new earth. But this earth is not hell. This earth is a place of pain and testing but hell is a place of judgment from which there is no way out, there is no redemption, there is no second chance. So it is true that many people have hellish experiences here in this earth. But this is the place where by God's grace we can come to know Him. By God's grace we can grow in the midst of the hardship. In fact, scripture often speaks of growing through hardship, growing through tribulation.

So look at it like this. What Satan means for evil, to destroy us and to torment us. God can turn around and use for good that we can learn of Him and receive more of His grace. May His grace be there in your life and the lives of those that you care for who are suffering. May you experience His goodness in the midst of the pain. Hey, thank you for the call. I appreciate it. 866-34-TRUTH.

Let's go to AJ in Somerville, South Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire. Thank you. I have a hot topic question for you on the Divine Council. My understanding is in Jewish thought there is this repetitive nature throughout scripture that connects the Old Testament with the New Testament, going back to the Old Testament, and I call it circle theology because I don't know what else to call it.

So I'm trying to wrap my mind around this. So I was wondering, is there a connection between the Divine Council and Moses' father-in-law makes a suggestion in the wilderness saying, hey, take your top people in each tribe and to place as judges over the tribes while you're in the wilderness. And then in Timothy, Paul talks about the church structure and appointing leaders over the church. So I was just wondering if this is kind of the same thing, that kind of repetitive nature of the Bible and scripture. I just wondered if there was a connection there. There's certainly no connection between the concept of a Divine Council and Jethro's pragmatic advice in Exodus 18. That's just pragmatism. That's just Jethro looking and saying to Moses, you need to learn to delegate.

You're going to wear yourself out. As to the structure of the early church, in many ways, it did follow a synagogal pattern where you had elders appointed. So that would have been something that they were familiar with. Now, of course, you had the concept of an elder in society. For example, the Hebrew word for elder, zakan, is related to the Hebrew word for beard, zakan. So it's a bearded one, an older one, the same way that the concept of an elder in the New Testament would be related to a gray-haired person. So you go to tribal culture in a remote part of Africa, and they've got a structure where elders are respected and honored. But in the synagogue, particularly, you had elders who had a leadership role or an oversight role on some level. And now that's just being patterned in a similar way in the early church, but certainly unrelated to any type of divine council or Psalm 82 type of thought. It's just practical delegation and then something that became part of synagogue life and early church life.

For sure you did not have a one-man show. For sure, the early church was not about one person doing everything. Many of our churches today, we have what some of us call the sola pastor model, where the pastor does everything, that all responsibilities fall on the pastor. And the pastor is the one, I don't mean a church of eight people, I mean you got hundreds and hundreds of people and they're expecting the pastor to come up with all the messages, the pastor to do all the visitation, the pastor to make sure the sick are being cared for, the pastor to make sure that the poor in the neighborhood are being fed, whereas the ideal role of the pastor is to be able to give himself to prayer in the word and then give oversight to the flock through a team of elders. So those types of concepts again are just spiritual pragmatism. So it's always good to ask questions but then you don't want to try to read things into texts that aren't there. Thank you, sir. You are very welcome. 866-34-TRUTH.

Let me just mention one thing along the way and then we'll get back to your calls. When I was writing my doctoral dissertation on the Hebrew word for healing, Rafah, I had a certain theory. And you're writing a thesis because you have a theory. Either you want to learn something or you want to demonstrate something. Maybe you're doing research in clinical psychology and you want to see what type of responses you get to this versus this. So you're going to do a clinical study and you don't know what the results are going to be and your dissertation is to publish the results of the study.

This is what we learned through our study. In other times you're writing a thesis because you want to demonstrate something. You want to demonstrate a connection between this concept and that concept. You want to demonstrate some insight that you have and now you're going to try to back it up. The problem is along the way you might find that your theory is not accurate. Or you might find you have to nuance your theory. That it's accurate in eight cases out of ten but not all.

So now you have to explain the exceptions. And what often happens is, and I know I was tempted to do this, I had a certain theory and now I was coming up to instances as I was tracing the root in ancient Aramaic, as I was tracing it in ancient language called Ugaritic, as I was tracing it in other languages and later dialects and Semitic dialects. Did my theory hold true? Were there exceptions to my theory? If so, how could I explain those?

Did my theory need adjusting? But I realized then, this is in the 80s, I wrote my dissertation from 83 to 85, I realized that it's very easy to have an idea and now I'm going to twist something to make it fit. I mean, look, we do it with doctrine. That we're preaching on a certain point or teaching on a certain point, and we've got 20 verses to support our point, and someone says, what about this verse? What about this translation here? And it's easy to try to twist the meaning of that so it fits the rest of your 20 verses. Rather than saying, hmm, that's a good question. That seems to be a little different than the emphasis I'm making.

That seems to be a little bit different than the point that I'm making. And I'm not sure how it fits. I'm going to think about it. I'm going to look at it afresh. Now there are doctrines where I'm 100% sure based on my understanding of scripture that yes, I believe this, I hold to this, I don't question it at all. But I don't quite know so I've got like a hundred verses to support it. I don't quite know how that one verse over there fits in. So I'm not sure about it, but I'm going to keep thinking about it. In other cases, when I look at it, it's like, ah, here's how they all fit. And in other cases like, yeah, there's, I have a certain tension there because I see the overwhelming testament of scripture in this direction, but this one I'm not sure about.

So I leave it until I can have better understanding rather than kind of twist the thing to fit some preconceived type of idea that I might have. Okay. On the other side of the break, I'm going to get back to your Jewish related calls. Are things unfolding in Israel with the new government so far? Seems peacefully.

I mean, the coalition is still together a couple weeks in, so we shall see what happens. And as always, we want to be praying for the advancement of the gospel among the lost sheep of the house of Israel. We'll be right back.

Thanks, friends, for joining us on the Line of Fire on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. Again, we are audio only. Hey, I want to give a shout out to Yolanda, if you're listening.

I met you yesterday, so Wednesday, at the Charlotte Airport over at Jamba Juice came up to me and asked if I was Dr. Brown. You held up your cell phone, so I was just about to listen to your podcast. And you know what's so meaningful to me when I hear that, and to each of you listening right now, I want to say this from my heart.

I saw the other day online that there were two and a half million podcasts worldwide, and of course the great majority emanating from the United States. I know there's so many hours in a day. There's so much time that we have. So for you to choose to take time to listen to this broadcast, it reminds me not just before God, but as a steward in your life as well, that it reminds me of the importance of every word we say. It reminds me of the importance of every broadcast, that I want it to be worth your while to listen. It may be key in your life in terms of help and encouragement, strength through equipping.

It may be something just at the right moment, the right time is there, but I take it as a sacred responsibility before God and want it to count for each of you. So thanks for listening. Thanks for praying for us. Thanks for supporting our work. All right, we go back to the phones and let's go to Ricky in Bellevue, Nebraska. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey Dr. Brown, thanks for having me. Sure thing.

Always a joy getting able to call in and ask you questions. Hey, so background of this real quick is I was talking to a good friend of mine today who is a believer, and at his job recently he was having a conversation with somebody about the book of Esther. I don't know the whole context behind it, but basically the person he was talking to is a former minister and basically was claiming that the book of Esther is unhistorical, not reliable, anything like that. I don't know his background and faith if he's still a believer or not, but I thought that I would ask you that question because I'm not sure if you, maybe in Jewish circles, have come across that argument before in regards to the book of Esther. And I know from the Dead Sea Scrolls that we have portions, if not whole portions of books from the Old Testament except from the book of Esther, so I just thought I'd ask you and see if you've dealt with that objection at all. Yeah, so there are two different questions. One was Esther always included in the canon of the Old Testament?

That's one question. Second question, is Esther considered historically accurate by scholars? In other words, the reason that the question comes up about Esther being part of the canon is not historical accuracy but was it considered scripture? And specifically God is never mentioned in the book of Esther. So it is true that there is no copy of Esther that was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and you are right that you have fragments, it can be even the tiniest fragment or some reference to every other biblical book, but remember some are so small that there's always just the chance that they didn't have a lot of copies of Esther and the copies that were had were gone. But as far back as we can go where you have discussion of canon of scripture in Jewish circles, Esther does play an important role. Even the development of the holiday of Purim over the centuries, of course that comes later, but obviously derived directly from Esther.

So there are some Christian canonical lists where there's a question about Esther, but overwhelmingly Esther has been received as part of the canon of scripture in the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible from the earliest times that there was discussion of a full canon. So the fact that it's not found among Dead Sea Scrolls is interesting but not of paramount importance. So the question that remains, if it is part of the Bible, is it historically accurate? And the answer would be that we have no historical records that refute it.

Is there historical support for it that's debated? But we don't have historical records that refute it. So to be totally candid with you, Ricky, the way it boils down is that Christians who are conservative in their faith and Jews who are traditional in their faith find adequate support and say there's no reason to question it historically. Those who are liberal and critical and read the Bible with more of a skeptical eye say it's obviously not historical. In other words, we don't have sufficient data to prove it or refute it, so it pretty much falls down the lines of those who believe the Bible to be God's Word say it's reliable and those who don't see the Bible as God's Word say it's not reliable. So this minister, if he was a minister in the past preaching the Bible, he would have thought it was reliable and now he doesn't. It's not one of those things, like there are a lot of things in the Old Testament we can verify, you know, specific details we can verify. You know, David being a king in Israel or Israel worshiping idols or various things like that, even, you know, people in exile in Babylon and data to support that. And so many things in the New Testament we can verify historically or say, yeah, that's accurate. But this is one of those where it all depends on your presuppositions, to be honest. And if you're a believer and you read the arguments for it, you'll say that's convincing. And if you're not a believer, you'll say, I don't think so. So it's just, it's one of those things and we don't have sufficient data to argue it either way.

Okay, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Yeah, just being totally candid on it. Now, again, let me just say this. The issue would be if all the evidence was against it and nonetheless we still believed it. If all the evidence said it's impossible but we still believe it, in that case we'd say, well, is it meant to be a parable? Is it a lesson? Was it never meant to be taken literally? You know, that would be how we try to argue against it.

But in this case, no, there is no definitive argument against it. The question is how do we fit the names and the places and, you know, which different way that that's read. Hey, thank you for the question. I appreciate it. 866-34-TRUTH.

We go to our friend Manny in Brooklyn. Welcome back to the line of fire. Thanks for taking my call, Dr. Brown. Sure. So, if your audience will remember, we had a discussion about Matthew, the 16th chapter. You bet.

Yeah. I argued that the coming of the Son of Man and His kingdom refers to the second coming. You argued it refers to the transfiguration that's brought down in the next chapter, proceeding in all the synoptic accounts of this verse. I argued that your interpretation is ambiguous at best, and if I could quote you or paraphrase you, you said that your interpretation was God shouting out at us with a tremendous clarity. So, I didn't have a chance really to bring any sufficient reason totally why it's ambiguous, but one of the things that struck me was you then went on to give me an alternative interpretation to this extremely, tremendously clear interpretation that you first gave. So, I think the fact that you gave me a second interpretation shows that your first one is not as unambiguous as you claim it is. When did I give you the second interpretation? During that same conversation, you ended off saying that we have another interpretation that Jesus... Right. In other words, we were talking, correct, and you were questioning the interpretation, right?

Yes. And I was saying others offer this interpretation. We're having a conversation. So, is your... And you said it's a plausible... Right. I don't see it as plausible.

Right. So, here's the deal. So, in my book, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, which you're quoting, I am refuting counter-missionaries and rabbis... I'm not quoting your book. I'm quoting the conversation you had with me. Uh-uh. Where I said, shouting.

And where you also gave the alternative explanation yourself. Got it. Got it. Yeah. Well, I do believe...

Here's the deal. I do believe in the text that because it's all the same in Matthew 16, then Mark 8 and Luke 9, you know, Mark 8, then into Mark 9 and Luke 9, that you have the identical account in each case, followed by the exact same teaching, followed by the exact same event, which is almost... It may be the only time in the Gospels you have this. Yeah, to me, God is shouting, here's your answer.

I'm telling you exactly what happened. Now, if you don't accept that, okay, others have other views. So, I do believe that it is being shouted out to us, and that is how I respond to counter-missionaries and rabbis and others challenging it.

If you say, I don't accept that, it's like, well, you should know that other scholars do see this alternative, but the plain reading of the text, to me, is very plain. Okay, that kind of seems like you're trying to... I'm trying to have an honest conversation here, not bringing in opinions that you don't really think are true.

I think you've also brought... I mean, I usually don't do that. I usually try to stick with opinion and try to convince people of my opinion, because if it's not, then I should go with that alternative. But you also argued by Haggai in the second chapter, when we had our discussion there, that the fact that rabbinic commentators disagree with my position indicates that my argument for the meaning of the text is not unambiguous. And I think, therefore, if we were here, the fact that you have other people arguing, according to your own standards, it should be an ambiguous interpretation at best. Oh, no, no.

Just because you have... Here, Manny, every page of the Talmud is differences of interpretation and reading of the law. It's ambiguous. Yeah, and it's ambiguous. So then the whole Bible is ambiguous. Every verse in the Bible is ambiguous. Every verse of the Bible is ambiguous, and every Talmudic ruling is ambiguous.

Unless you don't respect the opinions that argue. So, for example, I don't think when it says, let's say, any verse that Jewish people and Christians argue, I don't respect the Christian interpretations, but I don't think it's ambiguous. No, just the Jewish interpretations.

Verse after verse after verse after verse. Verse after verse within Torah, just within Torah, there are various Jewish interpretations. So then based on your understanding that every verse in Torah is ambiguous?

No, because the question is of the commentator who argues, do I agree with him or not? If I could see the point of view of two commentators that argue, then yes, ambiguous. If I could have two explanations for something, and they're both plausible, then yes, it's ambiguous.

If I can't say that we have a plausible metaphor. So you're saying that the greatest that you're thinking trumps the greatest sages in Jewish history, the most revered rabbis, that if you don't find their interpretation plausible, then the verse is not ambiguous. So you're basically the arbiter of what's ambiguous or not. Yeah, and that's everyone's, honestly. All right, so you're right. So bottom line— You argue that the verse is unambiguous, and then you have a lot of Christian commentators who were before you whose people might, you know, give some more authority to, then you're just, oh, and you were the judge and you decided it's not unambiguous.

But Manny, Manny, all right, this is actually a bit of a silly call, because we're not going to talk about the text. In my view, it's unambiguous. In my, as I understand it, God's shouting the answer to us. If you don't accept that, fine. Here's some other views others have.

But to me, it's unambiguous. That's all. It's The Line of Fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural and spiritual revolution. Get into The Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Thanks, friends, for joining us on The Line of Fire on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. Yes, hey, look, if you ask me my view of a particular thing and I say it's unambiguous, it seems loud and clear from the text to me. Here's what it says.

Dr. Brown don't say it like that. Others say it like this. I'm telling you it seems very clear to me. So, yeah, that's the whole realm of biblical scholarship. That's the whole realm of beliefs and just the way we live our lives. Certain things seem very clear to us. Others differ.

So there are other ways to look at this, but here's the way I look at it and here's why. It's the best we can do, right? All right, if you're just turning in and referring back to the last call that I had. Okay, we go over to Sean in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Welcome to The Line of Fire. Hi, Dr. Brown, how are you? Doing well, thanks. You don't have me on speaker phone, do you?

No, I'm using my earbuds. Okay, great. Just to be unsure. Thanks. Oh, no, no, no. How are you doing today?

Doing fine. Yeah, I listen to your program all the time and there are so many times I do agree with you, but there's an issue that I've been trying to call about for some time now, discussing with the Jewish people. You know, if John says for God so loved the world, you know, why do you keep saying that to the Jewish people? You know, because the way I, the way I conclude from what you've been saying is, you know, Jewish people are more special, you know, because I come from that background that I used to give out, you know, to the, you know, Jewish nation, you know, from the Old Testament, think about, you know, if you're blessed, the Jewish people are going to be blessed back, you know, and I used to do that for a long time until, you know, my, I mean, the scripture kind of opened my eyes to the fact that I'm idolizing the Jewish people, you know, you know, and the example God gave me is the situation with Mary. You know, Mary was chosen, but her being chosen does not make her, you know, somebody that should be Washington like a Catholic judge is Washington. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so, Sean, I'm a hundred percent with you that it's a terrible mistake to idolize the Jewish people, to look at Israel as if it's some type of magic charm, and if you just rub it, you get blessed.

No, God forbid. Anyway, I started the whole show today talking about the error of thinking that Jews had another way to be saved outside of Jesus. John 3 16 is about God's love for the whole world and salvation for Jew or Gentile comes through his son. If you think of it, the Jewish people have suffered terribly over the centuries, you know, maybe worldwide we consist of 14 15 million people, but we're just as ancient as India and China and they have, you know, combined populations of close to a billion and a half each of, you know, Indians and Chinese worldwide. So Jewish people suffered through the ages. Genesis 12 3 still is true that God will bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse simply because he made a covenant promise to Israel and Israel is associated with God on the earth.

That remains true. But Jewish people without Jesus are lost. Jews are like everybody else, good qualities, bad qualities, and to idolize Jewish people or to look at them as if they're special is definitely a mistake. How do you reconcile Zechariah 13 8 and 9? How do you reconcile them with, you know, the New Testament, I can't remember which chapter, you know, which book, you know, that says all Israel is going to be saved, you know, because those are two contradictions. Oh no, not at all.

Not at all. At the end of the age, there'll be a national turning. Zechariah 13 may have applied to the first century when there was a terrible destruction of the Jewish people, the first and second centuries. It's in the immediate context that relates also to a first century prophecy about smite the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered, right?

That replied to Jesus and his death. But even if it applies to the end of the age, Sean, even if it's saying that at the end of the age there'll be a tremendous purging and two out of three will perish. Even if that's right, it is saying at the end of the age, all those, the Israel that remains, will be saved.

There will be a national turning. So you don't think he's talking about Israel in general as in all the Israelites that are already in heaven? No, it can't be.

It can't be. That's completely contrary to the context, 100% contrary to the context of Romans 11, that says it's on the heels of the fullness of the nations coming in. And so, in an accommodating way. And then when you just keep reading the next verse, that the Messiah will come and turn godlessness away from Jacob. Yeah, but see, when Christ comes, you know, even all the sins in heaven, everybody's going to return to get dressed up for the wedding. But Sean, it's not what the text is saying.

It's not what the text is saying. Is there godlessness, ungodliness in heaven right now? Are people sinning in heaven? Okay, so Sean, it's talking about the fact that God will turn ungodliness from Jacob. Just read Romans 11, 27.

It's flatly plain. And then what about Romans 11, 28? And see, Sean, you've sung from one extreme to the other just in candor and embraced a theology that is contrary to Scripture. What does it say in Romans 11, 28? That even though the Jewish people now are enemies of the gospel for your sake, meaning the gospel has gone to you as a gentile because Jews have rejected the Messiah, they are loved by God because of the fathers. Why?

11, 29. For the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. So God made promises to Israel. He keeps those promises.

He made it to the fathers no matter what. And at the end of the age, what does Paul say? There's only a remnant now, but as Israel turns back, read Romans 11, 11 to the end of the chapter. Start reading there. Romans 11, 11.

Read it from there to the end of the chapter. There's no question that Paul is talking about the future salvation of Israel. What's written in Jeremiah 31, 1? At that time God says, I will be the God of all the families of Israel. So it seems, sir, that you have to find that happy balance of truth. You went from idolizing the Jews to now condemning the Jews. But there's a happy meeting of truth. Jews are like everyone else.

In terms of our nature, we do good, we do bad. Jews need Jesus to be saved like everyone else. Jews have suffered terribly by being the chosen people through the ages. Yet at the end of the age, there will be a national turning and all Israel will be saved. There are other verses that support it. Look at Zechariah 12 and the massive repentance that will take place with the return of the Messiah and the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem turning en masse. So that is going to happen, my brother. And I encourage you to pray for the salvation of Jewish people.

But recognize that God has not cast them off and that he still wants us to recognize they have been chosen, even if under judgment, still chosen. Hey, thank you, my brother, for the call. We can continue the dialogue. But please take time. Get on your knees alone with the Lord. You obviously seem to be a God-fearing man. Romans 11. Start reading in verse 11. I mean, read earlier. And then out loud say, God, what does this mean?

Read it through till you get to the end of the chapter. Hey, I appreciate the call. 866-34-TRUTH.

All right, see if we have time for another call. We go to Gavin in Pensacola, Florida. Welcome to the line of fire.

Hello, Dr. Brown. Yes, I met you when you were in Pensacola years and years ago. And I'm always impressed to continue with your ministry. And what a wonderful thing to see the outreach to both companies. So I wanted to get your take on what we are doing with Doug Hamps, Doug Krieger, Chris Stanley on this Commonwealth of Israel movement, more or less. And which through Ephesians 2, we're talking about how we were once alien strangers from the Commonwealth of Israel, but now through the blood of Christ, we're brought nigh. And so this to me, as we're working through this, seems to be a wonderful peacemaker to head off some of the anti-Semitism, the jealousy that is rising up inside the church today. And I wonder if you've had any chance to sort of have any thoughts about that particular perspective.

Yeah, I'm not familiar in depth with everything that you're speaking of. But number one, when the church recognizes the Jewish roots of its faith, that's a healthy thing. When the church recognizes God's eternal purposes for Israel, that's a healthy thing. When the church thinks that it is Israel, or has become Israel, is the new Israel, is the spiritual Israel, that becomes a dangerous thing because it ends up displacing the calling and purpose of the Jewish people themselves. And if it goes in the way of saying that Israel has a way of salvation outside of the Messiah, that's erroneous. But to recognize the drawing near, to recognize that in Jesus, Jew and Gentile become one, and with that, to labor together for the nations and for Israel, and have a desire to bless Israel, not curse.

That's all good and healthy. Yeah, so you'd be happy with the movement towards the idea of a one new man in Christ, or one in Christ Jesus, and that particular emphasis, this us and them attitude. We in the Commonwealth of Israel are against replacement theology and the dispensational theology, which shunts off the Jewish house into a fog bank and has no plan or sees no end time reconciliation. Of course, we're post-trivial, so we see a responsibility to our Jewish brethren and them to us as we come to the end of the age.

The two sticks were coming together. Ezekiel couldn't serve. Yeah, listen, I appreciate what you're presenting and how you're presenting it. I don't see the two sticks as being Gentile believers and Israel in context in Ezekiel. But in terms of the spirit of what you're saying and doing, yes, the key thing is this one new man in Messiah. One humanity in Jesus the Messiah. That's the key. Hey, God bless. Thank you. Another program powered by the Truth Network.