Rich,
Thanks for your response.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SemperFideles  1) Actually, I don't think it's as simple as saying that Jews were cut off to allow Gentiles in to the Covenant. It's not as if God had a seating problem and the only way He could fix it was to kick some people out. |
True, and that's not what I intended to say. What I was getting at with the 1st question was whether or not the passage was talking about people who were part of God's covenant being cut off, and others who were not part being grafted in and becoming part of the covenant.
My focus in all three questions is pretty narrow, that being the criteria (in the OT and NT) for a person in God's covenant no longer being considered part of it. If its accepted that the Romans passage is talking about being part of God's covenant, then the criteria in the NT for not being part of the olive tree (ie., God's covenant) is unbelief. Is that same criteria of unbelief also expressed in the OT?
In the OT, they were told that through disobedience they could break God's covenant and suffer the consequences.
Lev 26:15 And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant:
Lev 26:16-18 I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you. And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.
But God is faithful, and later when Israel enters the promised land, God promised not to break the covenant with them (which they had broken) and to "be their God". God is faithful to honor the covenant despite the unfaithfulness (ie., disobeying the commandments) of Israel.
Lev 26:44,45 And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the LORD their God. But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the LORD.
Is it true that, even though the covenant was broken through disobedience, God still considered all of Israel to be part of the covenant? Those who were slain by their enemies (Lev 27:17) as punishment, did they die still part of the covenant?