The Christian Zionist Parenthesis and Its Separation of Elect Jews From Elect Non-Jews
John Darby said that the "Church has sought to settle itself here, but it has no place on the
earth... [Though] making a most constructive parenthesis, it forms no part of the regular order of God's earthly plans, but is merely an interruption of them to give a fuller character and meaning to them..."
John. N. Darby, 'The Character of Office in The Present Dispensation'
Collected Writings., Eccl. I, Vol. I, p. 94.
"Them" are all physical Israel, or Old Covenant Israel. The church, for Darby exists mainly to "give fuller character and meaning to all physical Israel."
John Darby and then C.I. Scofield and Lewis S. Chafer said that when the dispensation of grace is over then God will return to a dispensation of law and again work with the people of the physical bloodline.- of the Old Covenant.
This theory is the origin of the Christian Zionist separation of the people of the bloodline of Abraham from the elect Gentiles, which they call the Church.
It is true that in the Book of Acts, Paul often preached the Gospel to the Jews in the Synagogues and to non-Jews in public places and in homes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudius "The Roman Emperor Claudius in Acts 18: 3 ordered the Jews to leave Rome. He was in office AD 41-54. And Roman historians Suetonius and Cassius Dio support this.incident.
In about A.D. 49 the Roman Emperor Claudius expelled the the Jews out of Rome.and Jewish Christians would have been expelled along with the rest of the Jews. During the period before the death of Claudius in about A.D. 54 when the edict lapsed and Jews started to return, the house churches in Rome would have become almost entirely non-Jewish. The returning Jews were faced with a Roman Christian population in the house congregations made up mostly of Gentile Christians. Whether the returning Jews joined the Gentile house congregations or established their own house congregations, there were likely to be divisions between the Jewish and Gentiles Christians in the house congregations of Rome at the time Paul, wrote his letter to the Romans.
The Jewish Christians who came back to Rome would have had to adjust to being part of Gentile congregations or of a Christian community in Rome dominated by Gentiles. This is the opposite of what would have happened before Claudius’s edict; at that time Gentiles would have had to adapt to Jewish customs to fit in.. The older Jewish Synagogue system of worship was likely weakened by the edit of Claudius. When the Jewish Christians showed up again in the now mostly-Gentile house congregations conflicts would have developed between the two groups.
A theme then in Paul's letter to the Roman Christians would likely have been the message to unify the Jewish and Gentile Christian community in Rome.
The call to unity is clearly seen in Romans 10: 12, "For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him."
In Romans 11: 1-5 Paul explains that God did not cast away all of his people of the Old Covenant, but a remnant of them were made an elect group, the implication being that he began the New Covenant with this remnant from Old Covenant Israel. But in Romans 11: 17-20 Paul states hat those of Old Covenant Israel who rejected Christ were cut off.
He begins to talk about some fundamental changes between the Old and New Covenants in Romans 2: 28-29 and in Romans 9: 6-8.
"For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: 29. But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." Romans 2: 28-29
Again, he is unifying the Christian Jews and Christian Gentiles in Romans 2: 28-29, by saying a true Jew is now someone who is a "Jew" not outwardly in the flesh by circumcision but is a "Jew" in the spirit. He is shifting the identity of a "Jew" from a fleshly identity to a spiritual identity, something the Talmudic Jews would reject but a doctrine that would unify the Jews and Gentile Christians.
"Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: 7. Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. 8. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed." Romans 9: 6-8
Then again in Romans 9: 6-8 Paul contrasts Israel of the flesh with another Israel which there he calls the children of the promise, and teaches that the Israel of the flesh, who we can infer are not born again in Christ, is not the children of God.
Romans 11: 25-26 can be interpreted by use of Romans 2: 28-29, Romans 9: 6-8 and Romans 11: 17-20 to mean that Israel in verse 25 is physical or ethnic Israel of the Old Covenant, but Israel in verse 26 is all the elect of God. Unless Paul is using Hyperbole here - which is unlikely - "all" can logically refer to either every Jew of all ages or all of the elect of God. If the meaning of All Israel shall be saved in Romans 11: 26 is that all the elect of God, regardless of race, are called Israel, then this unifies Christian Jews and Christian Gentiles as one in elect Israel. But separation theology cannot accept this interpretation.
Jewish Christian and Gentile Christians are divided as far as the flesh is concerned, but are unified spiritually.
Therefore, the doctrine that Lewis S. Chafer states as being fundamental to dispensationalism, that ".....never the twain, Israel and church, shall meet" is about Israel of the flesh and not about Israel of the Spirit.in which all in Christ all united. Lewis S. Chafer, Systematic Theology (Dallas, Dallas Seminary Press, 1975), Vol. 4. pp. 315-323..
In his book, Dispensationalism (1966), Charles Ryrie says "The
essence of Dispensationalism, then, is the distinction between Israel
and the church." (page 3, "Dispensationalism")
J. Dwight Pentecost is another dispensationalist theologian who in his
book Things To Come ( 1965) says "The church
and Israel are two distinct groups with whom God has a divine plan.
The church is a mystery, unrevealed in the Old Testament. (page 193,
J. Dwight Pentecost, Things To Come, Zondervan, 1965).
This is separation theology, dividing elect Jews from elect Gentiles.
Interestingly, Paul's Book of Romans can be compared to a Beethoven symphony in which a major theme is developed in different contexts. In Beethoven's 9th the music develops the theme which suddenly breaks out in song, "Alle Menschen Werden Brueder."
Maybe Beethoven did mean all men become brothers in a spiritual sense, though Paul as a Christian apostle in Romans states the message in an explicit way that there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek in Christ Jesus, for they are one spiritually.
And Paul said in Acts 17: 26 "And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth..." He does not mean literally that God made all men of one flesh physically; he is using one flesh as a metaphor for a spiritual unity in God.
"Alle Auserwählten sind spiritual Brüder." or, "All the elect are spiritual brothers." There is no separation theology in scripture.
