But of course, once Casob/JD has fastened on to some notion he sticks to it like glue, no matter how great the pile of evidence against it. I will be referring to him from now on as "Casob never-wrong JD".

Casob wrote:
MurrayA,
God wrote:
John 10:6 This parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them.
Let me see! Who to believe, MurrayA or the apostle John? I think I am going with John on this one!

The use of "parable" in John 10:6 is not what God wrote, but what the KJV translators wrote (specifically, the Second Oxford Company).

By contrast the word in Matt.13 is parabole: an extended simile which has one basic point. They all begin with the formula, "The kingdom of heaven is like..." Hence as to when Jesus began to speak in parables DJC49 is correct: we don't really know. John 10 cannot be appealed to as this is a different type of discourse.

In fact, I thought it was something of a left-handed compliment: all you could do by way of reply was to abuse me. There was nothing in it at all by way of meaningful response.

Moreover, here you are in what is generally acknowledged as hyper-Dispensationalism, viz. the view that Jesus' first object was to offer a kingdom to the Jews, but facing rejection of this offer, Jesus withdrew it and adopted a new plan, i.e. the Church, something not foreseen by the OT prophets.

How dare anyone propose that the Triune God has a 'Plan B', which is implemented upon failure of the first plan!
In what blithe manner does one speak of Him who accomplishes ALL THINGS according to the counsel of His own will (Eph.1:11)! Disp'sm is HERESY!

Or again,
"He (Christ) was chosen (foreknown) before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for your sake." (1 Peter 1:20)

Not I, said the fly. Not this time. It happened overnight (my time).

As to the rest of your post, you have yet to reply directly to DJC49's challenge. Instead, you hedge and scrape, change the subject, throw up dust, do the smoke and mirrors routine, attack the man, draw in red herrings, and question the salvation status of your opponent.
Anything, that is, except answer the challenge.

Here, here!!

Just pipe down with your patronising claptrap! It is demeaning, insulting, uncharitable, arrogant, and conceited. Just can it! I am tempted to say that the boot is on the other foot, but that would only be descending to your level. However, this sort of talk makes me all the more determined to repudiate your whole outlook.

Don't be too sure! It's not that I don't follow DJC49; it's just that I can't be bothered arguing with an intransigent hardhead any more.

Your appeal to Matt.21:2, 5 (quoting Zech.9:9) is invalid. By His triumphal entry Jesus was announcing that He IS Israel's king, accept it or not. There is no "offer" there which they can take or leave; He IS their king.

However, He is not a king in the political sense. Throughout His ministry He always repudiated that idea (cf. John 6:15), but you Dispies would impose it on Him regardless. You still live with a thoroughly flawed Jewish notion of kingdom and kingship.

As to the question of this thread, "Who are members of the covenants?", let me summarise:
Of the options given, the second is the correct one.
The Old covenant was breakable, and was in fact broken (Jer.31:32), The New covenant is "not like" that Old covenant. This means that all Israel was "in the covenant", but "not all are Israel that belong to Israel" (Rom.9:6); only the elect belong to God's eternal salvation Covenant.

Under the New Covenant every single one "knows the Lord" (Heb.8:11); the New Covenant of salvation by the Mediator Christ Jesus is confirmed to them absolutely (Heb.9:15).

Add to that is the inexorable logic of his position, and the many statements he has made which clearly amount to saying that anyone who rejects that Dispy system cannot be saved.

This is reprehensible rubbish, a bigoted unchurching of many faithful and godly people, and an implied attack on Christ and His Apostles themselves, whose own hermeneutic of OT prophecy was very different from yours (e.g. Rom.9:25-26 and Hosea 1:10; 2:23), as I and others on this board have often pointed out to you.

You are welcome to your absurd literalism. You may keep it. I will never renounce my amillennial position for the sake of your outlook. Unlike you, I have a goodly heritage throughout church history in this regard.

BTW you never did reply to my point about reductio ad absurdam, although I often challenged you.

Consider:
"Those who deny the promises in the covenants [i.e. in the Dispensational sense] and change the meanings of words like Jacob, Israel, everlasting, and others or make them mean something else are aiding and abetting Satan in his quest to defeat God."

and again:
"However, whether you believe the words of the Scripture [read here: the Dispensational system and version of Scripture] is an indicator of salvation and you men have admitted you do not believe them and I agree that you don't."

Because you have so equated "the words of Scripture" with the Dispensational understanding thereof that they are entirely convertible terms, you cannot but insist that anyone who rejects that system cannot be saved.

You asserted in a post some weeks ago (I can't remember when) that for many years you have interpreted Scripture dispensationally. Now you are trying to deny that that is your position. Yet your assertions are clear as day to any observer that you follow to the letter the Dispy system (the 14-point Abrahamic covenant, the division of Israel and the Church, the modern state of Israel in prophecy, the rapture, the 7-yr trib, the millennium etc. etc).

YOU brought 2 Cor.13:5 into the discussion - I did not - with sundry solemn warnings to examine myself as to salvation because I did not accept the shibboleths of your Dispy system. I find this highly objectionable.

"...that God has elected a few of you before the foundation of the world and he saves you at his own discretion and in his own time."
And yet again you bring the Calvinistic bogeyman as a useful rod for my back, when I have never raised or discussed that issue with you.

WELL, I DON'T!!! All I have disbelieved is the Dispensational spin you have placed upon Scripture, not Scripture itself. And there are multitudes of true believers who join with me.

I am heartily tired of people who put a wall around themselves saying that only those of their own persuasion will be saved. You are just as bad in your own way (note) as the traditional Roman Catholic who puts a wall around his papal communion, saying that outside that communion there is no salvation.

Rev.7:9 tells me that in heaven there will be a multitude that no-one can count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language. There will NOT be merely a relative few from the twentieth century, and mostly from the Bible belt of the United States, the home these days of your outlook.

Hence it is all about restoration to the land, and restoration to fidelity, in the wake of the bitterness of the Babylonian Exile. Cyrus the deliverer is both described in Isa.41:2ff; 41:25ff; and named in 44:28 & 45:1.

Tell me, Mr. Know-it-all, why was no Cyrus-type prophecy ever given to the Jews in the aftermath of 70 A.D.? All we have are the blunt statements of Christ that "your house is left desolate", and the kingdom will be taken away from you" (Matt.23:38; 21:43 resp.). End of story!

You asked me for a Dispensational scholar who holds as I do on Isaiah 40-48: Try Herbert Wolf, "Interpreting Isaiah" - and that's just for starters.

Yes, and that is not only me, but any commentator I have ever read on the subject, and I have read many, including Dispensational scholars.

The revelation of Cyrus in the prophecy prepares the way for the revelation of the Suffering Servant of the LORD who redeems His people from sin, as the Prologue in 40:1-11 announces. Cyrus is a servant, of sorts, but the Messianic Servant is the perfect One. Moreover, the restoration from Babylon to the land is the precursor to the vicarious atonement of the Servant (which took place at Calvary), 52:13 - 53:12.

All this has nothing whatever to do with the modern state of Israel, unless you are going to argue that the modern state is somehow the redemption of Israel from sin, or that Israel vicariously suffers for the sin of the world.

As for the "small portion of land in Palestine" bit, this seems to be a climbdown! You have been insisting that the land of Israel is all-important. Now you are trying to minimise it. Where oh where do you stand?

Oh, wait a minute...it's just Muslims who get upset like that if anyone demeans their precious Qur'an, like sticking it down a toilet or some such.

Yes, I can read, but I have serious doubts, based on many posts from you to a whole range of contributors, that you can in any meaningful way.

Isa.41-48 was fulfilled in the return from Babylonian Exile, as confirmed in the specific mentions of Cyrus in 44:28 & 45:1. Nothing in this set of chapters has anything to do with the state of Israel 25 centuries hence.

Likewise, Psalm 105 has to do with the OT context and fulfilment. How you get the modern state of Israel from there is beyond my comprehension. Nothing to do with it!!
Only by first reading it in can you then get it out, a procedure you should know all about: it's called eisegesis.

On conditionality and land tenure, see Deut.4:25-27 & Deut.30:17-18. The long commentary in 2 Kings 17 is testimony to that conditionality.

Significantly, NO promises of land restoration of the Cyrus type were made after the final destruction and eviction in 70 A.D. The land had ceased to be relevant in God's promises. The covenant promise to His faithful ones was now THE WORLD! (Rom.4:13).