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by Arno C. Gaebelein (Author)
Arno Clemens Gaebelein (August 27, 1861 - December, 1945) was a Methodist minister in the United States of America. He was a prominent teacher and conference speaker. He was also the father of educator and philosopher of Christian education Frank E. Gaebelein. In the Nov-Dec 1896 issue of "Our Hope" one of the best statements of Hebrew Christians (Messianic Jews) was written under the heading, The Principles of the Hope of Israel Moment. "The Hope of Israel Movement aims to bring the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ to His brethren according to the flesh. We hold that Scriptural - not Talmudic or Rabbinical, still less Reformed - Judaism is as much as divine revelation as Christianity. The canon of the New Testament has no higher Divine authority than has that of the Old. Neither is complete without the other. Salvation is from the Jews, John iv:22. And the gospel is "to the Jew first," Rom. i:18. The Jew is not a Gentile. The term "proselyte," therefore, can never apply to the Jew. The promises of God are Israel's Rom. ix:4, 5. Gentile believers are the real "proselytes," once far off, now made nigh, Eph. Ii:12, 13. The root of God's good olive tree, Israel, bears us; not we the root, Rom. xi:17, 18. To "proselyte" the Jew, then, is to ignore and to reverse the Divine order. The Jew has no need whatever of the organizations or instutitions of historical (i.e. Gentile and denominational) Christianity. All he needs is personal, saving faith in his own Jewish Messiah, the Christ of God, nothing more. And all that was Divinely given him through Moses he has full liberty to retain and uphold as far as possible when he becomes a believer in Jesus Christ. This to us clearly follows from these Scriptual considerations: 1. Abraham - the Divine pattern of the true Jew, as well as of the believing Gentile, Rom. iv:11, 12 - received circumcision as an everlasting covenant after he had believed God unto ustification, Gen. xvii:9-14. God Himself added circumcision to Abraham's faith. And thus Paul writes: "Is any man called being circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised," I Cor. Vii:18. This was the ruling of the apostle to the Gentiles in all the churches. (Compare Ezek. xliv:7, 9) 2. The natural seed of Jacob shall not cease to be a nation before the Lord forever, Jerem. xxx:11, xxxi:35, 37; xlvi:28; Rom. xi:1, 29. This is God's eternal purpose and the secret of Israel's preservation. Even so at this present times - through the gospel - a remnant of the nation is being saved, according to the election of grace, Rom. xi:5. These saved Jews, to be a true remnant, should not surrender any of the Divinely appointed marks of the nation Israel. They should not be taught to un-Jew themselves. 3. The Lord Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God....
