During Holy Week one hears from the pulpits either naive, picture-perfect depictions of Christ’s sufferings on the cross, or politicized slogans of suffering from oppressed peoples, or the deification of the cross as such, as if the crossed beams were the fourth deity.
Only rarely is focus on the message of the cross, which seems either like foolishness to those who are perishing, or is a nuisance to those who just want to be “free.” But what is the message of the cross? The message of the cross is that God reconciled the non-Jews who were remote from His plan of salvation and who were not previously part of God’s people with Himself, and grafted them into the tree of salvation in order to make Jews and Gentiles one body.
This salvation macrocosm consists of microcosms, of individual people who personally and consciously converted, and thus allowed themselves to be grafted into God’s tree of salvation and have since been supported and nourished by one and the same root together with the Jewish people.
God’s healing...
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Thank you for republishing this article. Well said!
The church’s one foundation is the Lord Jesus Christ and scripture is the manual that builds the Christian. The Jewish and Gentile expressions were compromised by tradition and the worldly values of power and wealth. Both require constant reformation if they are to return to their biblical foundation. The church has chosen not to embrace its Jewishness, rather it has chosen to Christianise paganism. This error still needs corrected. Some church beliefs cut Christians off from the root, such as observing the wrong feasts, practising idolatry and being agents of the State. I’ve heard nominal Christians argue they expect God to accept them because of their denominational status. There are popes who expect to go to a purgatory, what chance their followers? Jesus was gracious to the Samaritan lady whose church was a mountain. He is gracious to all who follow him.
The biggest problem I see in the realm of Christianity today. most people go to or join a church for the sole purpose of going to heaven. The problem with that is, they don’t give up the world and don’t develop a relationship with the Lord. Another term for that is, “being saved IN your sins.”
Jesus spoke of the time we are living in and called it, “the beginning of sorrows.” You can find it in Matt. 24. No one wants to miss the, “rapture.” From what I read, the rapture will probably happen before the seventh seal which brings the first trumpet. which is the pouring out of the wrath of God. He promises those who are His will not see His wrath, and the throne room is not filled until then.
What we see in Israel is just the beginning of tough times around the world.