Thanks for answering more simply. Please clarify what you mean.
IOW, I read the verse as saying God has commanded men to believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ. There are no conditions in this command - it's a simple believe or don't believe - believe or disobey God's command.
It appears we need to clarify this. God commanding belief in Christ Jesus is indeed effective in setting foundational rule by which anyone is saved. That ensures that there is no other side-path for salvation; keeping it through Christ alone.
Israel was under this:
James 2:14, 17
14 What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath
faith, and
have not works? can faith save him? ...
17 Even so
faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
Contrast what is taught to the body of Christ:
Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For
by grace are ye saved through faith; and
that not of yourselves: it is the
gift of God:
9
Not of works, lest any man should boast.
The contrast is so strikingly obvious, with more examples that can be shown that there is indeed a contrast.
Israel was called to a priesthood over this earth that Gentiles were not called to fulfill. Israel fell, to be raised back up once the blindness is lifted from us as a nation, with Gentiles not ever referred to as a priesthood in any of Paul's epistles as we see in places like this:
1 Peter 2:5, 9
5 Ye also, as
lively stones, are built up a
spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. ...
9 But ye are a chosen generation,
a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
Replacement theology has many claiming this refers to Gentiles, even though Peter was NOT the apostles to the Gentiles, and Paul nevr once referring to Gentiles as a nation nor a priesthood.
So, I will agree that the same foundational pathway is defined for both Jews and Gentiles, in that Christ is the ONLY way unto salvation. What's different between what is required of those who are of the body of Christ and those who are of the Kingdom Gospel, it's works requirement upon the Kingdom peoples versus no works requirement upon all non-Kingdom peoples.
Granted, we will likely not agree on this, which is what it is. The gospel
OF the
Circumcision is not the same as the gospel
OF the
Uncircumcision. The weak and beggarly claim that's only a difference in groupings, the lack of intellectual honesty in that is, as stated, striking. The text does not state the gospel of the circumcision and uncircumcision, as if they were one and the same. They are broken apart with no hint of the specificity being focused upon mere groupings only, but rather there being a difference in the gospels OF those two groupings.
Again, you may not agree, and we will simply agree to disagree. I don't have to answer for any works-based salvation retentionists out there, just as they will not have to answer for me if I were the one in the wrong for reading scripture for what it says and recognizing the differences where they are obvious.
MM