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Old 03-20-2008, 11:53 AM
cpmac
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Jerry:
I'm looking at what I think is a reference to the remnant, in Isaiah 6. In the same passage,
Isaiah tells us when the "Great Tribulation" occurs, and when the blindness of Israel ends.
Of course, that's my spin. Dispensationalists, I am sure, will have a different view.

v10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. Isaiah tells us HOW the blindness began, but he doesn't tell, as far as I know, WHEN.

v11 Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate,
v12 And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.
This is, without a doubt, a prediction of the Tribulation Jesus spoke of, which was to happen just before AD70. Some big time scholars, like John Macarthur, would like to tell us that this happened back in Babylonian times. Not true. Even if the details were identical, there was never any mention of blindness of the Jews. Here, Isaiah specifically tells us that this is the scene when the blindness of Israel ended.

Also, the Jews weren't blinded so that salvation could come to the Gentiles. That doesn't even make sense. Jews were concluded in unbelief so that salvation could come directly to Gentiles - through faith in Jesus Christ, meaning God was through using Jews. Their blindness came when, after some forty years of opportunity to hear and believe the Gospel, they still refused to believe the truth, even after seeing Christ, hearing Him, and were eye-witnesses of His miracles. They were blinded and destroyed. They were damned and destroyed in the Roman holocaust of AD70. Read 2Thes.2:9-12. About that time the believing remnant was raptured, and the souls of the Old Testament Israelites were resurrected and taken to heaven.

v13 But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof. I believe the "tenth" is an approximation. This was the small remnant. They would "return." That, I believe, means that after God concluded all Israel in unbelief, in other words He kicked them all out of His Family, He gave every one a means to come back into the Family; all they had to do was believe in and obey Jesus Christ.
A careful study of the New Testament, at least in the KJV, shows that there was a general salvation of all Israel around the time of the AD70 holocaust.

That raises the question: since all these were Christ's people, why weren't they saved the moment they received Him as Lord and Saviour. The Jews in that day weren't saved immediately. They had to endure the "Baptism of fire" to the end - the end of the Jewish system. The Gospel of John, chapter 1:

He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

When they first received Him, they didn't immediately become sons of God, He only gave them power to become Sons of God. I suspect that means He empowered them to overcome the devil throughout that Baptism of fire period.

Jerry, I'll look at the other Scripture references to the remant later.

cpmac
http://www.tribulationhoax.com