God's Covenant with Israel Still Stands, Baptist Leader Says

Christians should show love and respect for God's covenant people.
by Jim Brown

(AgapePress) - A prominent Southern Baptist leader says Christians need to separate themselves from the lie that the church has replaced Israel as God's chosen people in God's prophetic timetable - and they must realize that no promise to Israel and the Jewish people in the Bible is figurative.Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, says Israel's entire inheritance does not belong to the Church. According to Land, in chapters 12 and 17 of Genesis, God made certain promises to the seed of Abraham through Isaac that he did not make to the Gentiles.

"One of those [promises] was that the land of Canaan would be given to [the Jewish people] forever," Land says. "And God is not one who makes conditional covenants - the Abrahamic Covenant is an unconditional covenant, and God is still in the process of fulfilling it with his chosen people, the Jews." Land says although Christians have a new covenant in Christ for salvation, that does not negate the promises that God made with Israel. He says when God says "forever," He means forever.

"If you look at Biblical prophecy, there is no question - that if you look at the Book of Revelation, for instance, and if you look at other passages in both the Old and New Testaments that deal with Biblical prophecy - God is not finished with His purposes for the Jews, and He will fulfill those promises to the Jewish people."

He says "replacement theology" is a great stumbling block to the Jews, and for centuries it has played a large part in the persecution of the Jewish people. He says Christians should show love and respect for God's covenant people - not contempt.

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