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Paul had repeatedly asserted, in opposition to the Jewish Scriptures, that the grace of God to be received by faith was the only way to salvation. Every criterion suggesting that the law was inadequate for salvation was emphasized by Paul. The next step for Paul in his philosophy was to teach that those possessing this “grace” that comes from “faith alone” are the “real Israel”. Those who rejected Paul and his new gospel were no longer the Israel of God.
Answer for yourself: Do you see that Paul is so exclusive that anyone who does not accept his teachings are now excluded from being the people of God?
Answer for yourself: Don't you find that amazing given the fact that throughout history God as always granted adoption to mankind based on their monotheistic belief in Him and their obedience to what they had revealed to them by Him (Adam and the Noah Covenant for instance had no knowledge of Messiah or His Name to be saved…yet were they not God’s people)?
Let us not forget that almost the whole of Romans chapter 9-11 was missing in the first New Testament collected by Marcion in 150 A.D. Yet a Paulinist writes these chapters and today it is credited to Paul. The author of these chapters said in Rom. 9:7-8:
Not because they are his descendants are they Abraham's children...It is children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.
The promise to which Paul alluded was supposedly found in Gen. 18:10, 14:
“At the appointed time I will return and Sarah shall have a son.”
Paul called Isaac a “child of promise" and Abraham's belief in the announcement that he will have a son an act of faith. Paul then jumped, as in a leap of logic, from that alleged faith of Abraham that he would have a son to the faith of Yeshua's followers that he was a promised savior. For Paul this was an analogy although he did not cite any Scriptural passage containing God's promise to send a savior.
The next step in his reasoning was that the true descendants of Abraham are not his genealogical progeny but, instead, ONLY those who believe in Paul’s doctrine and new teachings of faith in Yeshua. The conclusion of Paul’s argument in Rom. 10 (again this chapter was not in the first New Testament and does not show up until 200 A.D.) was that believers in his new faith doctrine about Yeshua, as well as his new doctrine of justification apart from the Law, are saved as the true Israel and that Jews who reject him and his new revelation, though biological offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are no longer members of the house of Israel!
Answer for yourself: In all of the above reasonings by Paul, can you see one glaring omission for all that he says which I have labored to show you in these articles…namely the omission of ANY REFERENCE to obedience as the fruit of one’s faith? Paul has completely changed what Moses and the Prophets have taught regarding justification and righteousness!
Answer for yourself: Are you aware that in the next chapter Paul, or the Pauline writer, contradicts what he has just said in Romans 9:7-8 where he said the physical descendants of Abraham are no longer Israel?
Let us look at the passage once again.
He said in ROM 9:7-8, “Not because they are his descendants are they Abraham's children...It is children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.”
Although in the very next chapter, Rom. 11, Paul contradicted himself by saying, that God did not reject the Jews (1-2) and “they are beloved for their father's sake,” (28), his real message comes through loud and clear and repeatedly.
Answer for yourself: How can Paul go to great lengths, as I have shown you, to teach the rejection of the Jews for rejecting his message of “faith alone” yet he comes a chapter later and says that God has not rejected the Jews?
As C.H. Dodd points out, "it is difficult to reconcile Rom.11:28 with Paul's strenuous denial in earlier parts of the epistle that descent from Abraham gives anyone the right to the inheritance of his blessing.” Saldarini also calls attention to the contrast in Paul's letter to the Philippians (3:24:1) with Rom. 11. In other words Paul reiterates his theme of the transfer of Israel's heritage to the Gentiles.
In Rom. 11 Paul presents an allegory of an olive tree on which wild branches were grafted. The tree was Israel and the wild branches, the Gentiles. The latter (believing Gentiles in God) benefited from the grafting spiritually into Israel because of the unbelief of the Jews [they rejected Yeshua's message of obedience to the 2nd Tablet of the Law which would necessitate reaching out to the Gentile of the world through the Great Commission which only the Messianic part of Judaism obeyed]. Paul goes on to say “And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again." For Paul it was the Jew’s non-acceptance of Yeshua that opened up the possibilities for the Gentiles to be saved. Yet the contrary is true and Paul’s conclusion is again in error, for it was the Jew’s acceptance of Yeshua and his message that would catalyze a movement from within Judaism that would reach well beyond its boarders in taking the message of God, Torah, and Israel to the Gentiles of the world. What you fail to understand is that outside the camp of the Messianic Pharisees to which Yeshua belonged, there was no effort expended to reach the non-Jew with the good news of God’s salvation for all mankind. Had it not been for Yeshua and the acceptance of his message by the Jews (faith) and their resultant action (faith manifested in works of evangelism where the Laws of Noah were taken to the non-Jewish world) to take the Jewish Scriptures to the Gentiles of the world , then we might yet be pagans today.
Through Paul's reasoning, the announcement to Abraham and Sarah of the "birth of a child" and their belief in this announcement was converted into an act of faith which, in turn, became the foundation for Paul to belief in the coming of a savior. The logical conclusion of Paul’s argument is that Abraham's descendants are not his offspring and those who are not his offspring are his descendants! That is absurd.
It is on the basis of this flawed reasoning that a theology was created which would deny Jews their spiritual and genealogical heritage and such continues today in the Christian Church because they lack basic Old Testament knowledge because of the over emphasis of the Pauline literature and the deemphasis of the Jewish Scriptures; the Bible Jesus used.
Besides the lack of logic and Scriptural evidence, this fantastic conclusion borders on the cynical. Abraham’s greatest achievement was his recognition of and adherence to monotheism and not a belief in a coming son. Jews have clung uncompromisingly to a strict belief in one incorporeal God. This is what truly makes them the heirs of the Patriarchs. As hard as it may seem to you since you have not studied in-depth of what I and others speak, Paul's deification of Yeshua as an incarnating God and as a descending Gnostic savior is a contradiction of and a negation of Abraham’s beliefs.