Article series: INTRODUCTION – WHO IS JEHOVAH? – WHO IS THE REAL ISRAEL – THE SCATTERING – THE GATHERING: ONE-FOLD – ONE ISRAELTHE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL NOT CHOSEN – DANIEL 9 AND THE PRE-TRIBULATION DECEPTION – JUDAISM ACE IS NOT A GODLY REPRESENTATION OF OT – THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL – THE DIFFERENCE (between Biblical Israel taking of Canaan and modern Israel taking of Palestine)

It is essential to understand who the real Israel is because God says we are blessed if we bless them and cursed if we curse them. Israel is God’s true congregation. If the name is placed upon the wrong group, it can lead to misunderstandings, deceptions, and curses. This is naturally why Satan does it, to confuse, and to cause the real Israel to be persecuted as impostors.

Who is the God of Israel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses? As shown in the previous chapter, it is Jesus who is Jehovah Elohim. Where does the name Israel come from?

Jacob was named Israel after wrestling with a Man all night who turned out to be the Lord. It was Jesus he wrestled with and to whom he said: “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me”.

So Jacob asked for Jehovah Yeshua’s blessing. It was Christ he clung to and would not let go without a blessing.

“And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed” (Gen 32:27-28)

Thus, the name Israel was given to Jacob because he had refused to let go of Christ.

If he had let go, he would not have been called Israel, and thus the name Israel is rewarded to a nation that holds on to Jehovah and won’t let go until He blesses them. Thus, the real Israel is not those who rejected Christ and let him go, but those who held on. The Jews who rejected Christ did the very opposite of Jacob. As we will investigate, when God gives a name it is a character trait of that person, and if that character trait has changed, or they do the opposite, their name changes.

The name Israel is an experience with God, a relationship with God rather than genetics.

The reason Jacob ended up in this situation in the first place was because his brother Esau was coming against him. Esau was Isaac’s firstborn, the one who normally would get the blessing of being a priest in the family. He had the genetic right, but because he was not faithful, God took away his genetic right and gave it to the secondborn. It was given to him because he held on to God in the right way.

Esau had married heathen wives and lived a religion that was part truth and part error. Although he too was a child of Abraham, the priestly right to be called God’s people followed the faithful brother and not the one with the rights of the flesh.

Now, Jacob feared his brother would harm his people because he had gotten God’s blessings, in the wrong way, which is why he ended in the prayer battle that he did. In the end, he allowed Esau to keep the material inheritance of the firstborn and instead, Jacob relied on God’s promise of a future blessing in its place. He gave up what he could see for the promise.

This fits very well with what happened between the Jewish brethren in the time of Christ. They split into two groups, one remained the stronger and had the power to persecute the minority. Yet, the persecuted brethren were content with inheriting the promise through Christ and let go of trying to rule over the physical Jewish inheritance, which included the land, the mountain of God, and the temple. The land was promised to the faithful, yet the unfaithful drove the faithful from the land. They were forced to live among pagans and the trials that came with that. The same happened in the start with Jacob and Esau. At first, Jacob, because he feared for his life, was forced to escape the land of promise, even if it would rightfully once be his, and live abroad. Esau continued to live on the land with his family until he moved east of Canaan.

When Jacob feared Esau, he clung to God, as the first church did.

Because the first Christian-Jewish church remained faithful and those who rejected Christ did not, they inherited the name Israel, which always went with the faithful in the family.

But although they inherited the name, they were also given a new and more exalted name:

“For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name. Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God” (Isa 62:1-3)

Zion is likewise a name that followed the faithful, as well as a name for Jerusalem.
God said the land would no longer be called “desolate” but Hephzibah which means “my delight is in her”. This naturally requires that they are faithful. Jesus might reveal the new name here prophesied and show that his followers would be called by his name, Yeshua, which means “Yehovah saves”. In Latin, this name has been translated to Iesus, from where we get the name, Jesus. The designation ‘Christians’ comes from the word Christ and implies following Christ, a name that means to follow the anointed. Christ and messiah are the same word for anointed from two different languages. And so a Christian just means to be a follower of the messiah. We see it used already in the New Testament: “Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian” (Acts.26:28)
Christ said it differently, He said they would be called by His name, gather in His name, and receive people in His name. This is consistent with the Old Testament: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and…turn from their wicked ways…I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14) Israel also contains parts of God’s name. It literally means: God perseveres or God rules. If God is denied to do both, the name does no longer represent the group, it becomes a lie unless placed upon the faithful.

The first century Christians started using the name “Christian” more and more instead of Israel for most likely two reasons. When it was first used in Antioch, the Christians were recognized as a Jewish sect. However, the Jews refused to have anything with their messianic brethren and did what they could so that Christianity would no longer be associated as a Jewish branch. It means that the first Christians would suffer harsh persecution and be misunderstood if they said they were Israel. If the majority of the Jews had remained faithful, none of this would have been a problem or confusion.

The unfaithful Jews tried to portray themselves as the faithful Israel and the followers of Christ as the apostates who lost the right to the name.

And thus Christians accepted being ostracized and felt a greater thing than being called Israel, was to be called a follower of that same God instead. This change of name was prophesied. Someone greater than Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had come, as a greater enlightenment of God’s salvation and preservation. What the name Israel prophesied, Jesus was, and His name “Jehovah Saves” was preferred. But God’s people were the same. God’s people are always called by many names, tied to their experiences.

The Jews who refused to believe and accept Jehovah’s salvation became like Esau. They had the flesh, the firstborn right to the promises, but they threw it away. They had, as Esau and Jacob, come from the same womb and dwelled together for a time. As their differences came to the surface, they parted ways and God chose the faithful younger instead of the unfaithful older, who by the flesh had the firstborn right. The leadership and priesthood were taken from the Jewish nation and given to the “younger” Jewish brethren, the fishermen, and the ordinary Jew. And they were made priests and leaders of God’s people in the place of the others. Jesus made a parable about this.
“The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son, And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come.  …But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage” (Matt.22:2-3; 8-9)
The “elder brother” had once again been rejected, the promises were no longer theirs, and the priesthood was no longer theirs, yet they claimed their birthright nevertheless and held on to the empty shell of a name, rituals, and a piece of land that no longer was rightfully theirs.

Rather than going into combat with them, the followers of Christ, the true Israel, did as Jacob. Not fight or war with their apostate brother, but allowed them to hold on to their “empty house”.

Unfortunately, because the unfaithful kept the name and upheld the history and promise with the name, many are now confused, thinking they are the real Israel of God.

But God sees them now as Esau, Jacob’s twin. There is a certain poetry in this as well, because the last kings in Judah, who reigned when Jesus was born and crucified, were partly descendants of Esau. King Herod and his descendants were raised Jewish and in part Edomites. Literally, a descendant of Esau tried to kill Jesus so that Jesus would not take his throne from him. His descendant and son also killed John the Baptist, mocked Christ, and persecuted His followers. Of him and his meeting with Jesus it is recorded: “And Herod with his men of war set him at nought, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him again to Pilate. And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together: for before they were at enmity between themselves” (Luk. 23:11-12)

Had Jacob let go of Jehovah when he wrestled with him, he would not have been named Israel. If Israel let go of Yeshua, they no longer had the right to the name Israel. Only those who cling to Him have the right to use the name. Just like many Christians are not entitled to use that name as they don’t follow the way of Christ.

The Jews who rejected Christ clung to a name and their genetics as their salvation and deceived themselves that they were God’s people no matter what. The reality was they were persecuting and even killing those who had continued in God’s path. Their delusion is reflected in the second temptation of Christ. Satan quoted the Bible and Psalm 91, telling Jesus to throw himself off the elevated temple and trust God would protect Him still. Jesus said this was the sin of “testing God”. You cannot go against God’s council and claim His promises at the same time. This is a deception of the devil.

Another parable is in the actual lives of Saul and David. Saul was elected King by God, he was chosen and given the Holy Spirit for his

mission. Yet when he was unfaithful to God, God rejected him as king. He took from him the position he had been given, and his descendants were not to inherit the throne. David, who is a symbol of Christ, was elected King instead. Saul then started persecuting David and tried to kill him, just like the Jews who would not receive Christ persecuted and killed those who did. Just like in the parable, David and Jesus gathered all those considered outcasts of society who were treated badly by their King. It did not look like God would give David the kingdom, and Saul continued his reign after being rejected as a king. To many, this was a sign and a confirmation he was still chosen and favored by God. How could the rejected David be chosen when he was an outlaw living in the woods, in caves, and in pagan lands? Is it not natural to think God was with the one who was anointed in public, who had his throne in their midst? If Saul was winning over David, was this not a sign that God favored Saul? In the same way, the first followers of Christ seemed like they were rejected and that God remained with the Jewish leaders. For a while, until they met their demise, like Saul did. Against God’s council, their war against Rome caused their death, thinking God would go with them. Just like Saul went to war hoping God would go with him. He was wounded in the war and died by his own hand. Many Jews who were defeated by Rome also chose to end their own lives in the middle of their battle with Rome.
Masada is a mountain by the Dead Sea where almost one thousand Jews committed suicide while the Romans camped underneath. They persecuted Christ and His followers and kept the land and their rule until they went to war with Rome and lost, repeating the story of Saul and David.
It does not matter who rules the land today, the Bible tells us that the land will at one point be given to His faithful followers on the day of judgment. Similarly, although outcast for a while, David did take the throne and the land in the time of God’s choosing.

So the Jews that reject Christ can claim what they want, their end if they do not convert to Christ, is the same as Saul’s. The land belongs to Christ and His followers and will one day be given to them. That Jews today are temporarily in the promised land, does not change this fact. They are trespassers. 

The confusion is therefore great when people today look at the descendants of those who rejected God and whom God rejected in return is to whom the future promises of Israel are directed. They look at the name and not the meaning behind the name. They reject the true Israel that is now “called by a new name”. And they think God is speaking through and blessing those who rejected Him. 

Lucifer

God does not let anyone legally keep a name tied to their position once they have lost that position.

This is why Lucifer, a name meaning “light bearer”, was taken from him when he instead misrepresented God and was given the name “opponent” instead. The first name described what he used to do, and the last what he now does. We see people’s names change several times in the bible to reflect their new position. Examples are Abram changing to Abraham, Oshea to Jehoshua, and Simon given the name Peter (Rock).
Satan is the first to go from an exalted position and a name reflecting that to get a name describing his conflict with God instead. However, Satan refuses the name change, he still considers himself to be the light bearer, the one in the right, and so he has kept the name Lucifer. Those who follow him, still call him by this name. He does not call himself Satan, it is a name change made by God. Just because Lucifer kept his name given to represent him when he was faithful does not mean he is right and that he is still a light-bearer. Calling himself Lucifer does not automatically make him a Lucifer. The name cannot sanctify him or confirm his position. The name he gives himself does not change who God says he is or what he has become.
Imagine if a government here on earth gave someone the title Police Officer or Sheriff and then had to fire the person for misconduct, and they still call themselves a Sheriff or police officer to others. And portray themselves as such. It would be a terrible deception and a crime. This is because the title belongs to a position and not the person. In the bible, names and titles are often the same thing, and so names change when they change.

Israel in the flesh did the same thing as Satan. They kept the name given because of their faithfulness, but God had now given them a new name tied to their rebellion. And the faithful remnant among them was the only one to legally (by heaven) keep the place and name. Although the land now belonged to Christ’s followers, they understood that it would be hijacked by whoever took it by force until God one day restored the earth to them. They know it is not something they are to fight for, it is given to Christ to take what is His in His time (Rev.20:7-10).

The destiny of the unfaithful part of Israel was prophesied beforehand. In the Messiah prophecy in Psalms 69 it says: “They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. 
Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap. 
Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake. 
Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them. 
Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents. 
For they persecute him whom thou hast smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded. 
Add iniquity unto their iniquity: and let them not come into thy righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.” (Psalm 69:20-28) 
“And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love. 
Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand. 
When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin. 
Let his days be few; and let another take his office”
(Psa 109:5-9). 

When someone takes “your office” they also take your title and job description. This is precisely what Christ says happened multiple times and in multiple ways. This is also what happened to Saul, another took his office and thereby his title as King.

This was the office of Israel: “And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel…” (Exo 19:6)

They rejected their High Priest, Christ, the heavenly sanctuary, and His teachings of the law, and thus their “office” was taken from them. So who was given it instead?
To the Jewish followers and those converting to the Judeo-Christian faith, it is now said: “And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, 

And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” (Rev 1:5-6)

As you can see, the “office” of Israel has followed the faithful and even those who were grafted in.

Now, because the office of royalty and priesthood is given to the followers of Christ, the title Israel follows them. However, it is not used as often as the name of Christ, which is a superior title to Israel. As Christ is greater than Jacob.

It is unfortunate now that many are fooled into thinking the Jewish congregation is still the priests and teachers of God, and they go to Israel and rabbis to learn how to interpret the word of God. The Bible is clear that they are not to mediate God’s law or word anymore, and can only teach the true follower of Christ an apostate version of keeping the law. It’s like a sheriff losing his job but is still going around impersonating a sheriff. He acts without authority and provokes the leaders of the land. If we go to the one impersonating the sheriff, we betray the leadership who took his job from him for a reason, and we rebel against the new sheriff appointed. We rebel against the one who is now the sheriff. Likewise, it is rebellion against Christ and the true Israel when we go and ask Jewish rabbis to be our priests and teachers, instead of the ones God has now chosen.

If these titles and tasks are taken from those who originally held this office and name, it means that although they call themselves Israel, the promised seed and priests, God calls them something else now. God always replaces a title with a new one, describing their current state.

A name tied to their opposition and betrayal.

Even I struggle to repeat the new names they have been given instead of Israel. It is sad and overwhelming.

Jesus gives them a new name: “the synagogue of Satan”. It means, translated, “an assembly of the accuser”. (Rev 3:9; Rev.2:9) God says they are blasphemers, which again means to “defame God”. Represent him falsely or use His name together with a lie. This new name is also seen in the prophecy in Psalm 109 “Let Satan stand at his right hand”. As we will unfold more in this study, we will see how they have become Satan’s helpers to deceive and scatter.

Article series: INTRODUCTION – WHO IS JEHOVAH? – WHO IS THE REAL ISRAEL – THE SCATTERING – THE GATHERING: ONE-FOLD – ONE ISRAELTHE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL NOT CHOSEN – DANIEL 9 AND THE PRE-TRIBULATION DECEPTION – JUDAISM ACE IS NOT A GODLY REPRESENTATION OF OT – THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL – THE DIFFERENCE (between Biblical Israel taking of Canaan and modern Israel taking of Palestine)

One of the arguments Christians use today that the Jews-by-flesh are still chosen is comparing how they have been scattered around in the world with the Bible and because they are scattered, the promises of the gathering are by logic assumed to be about them.

So who is the real Israel scattered and who is scattering them, according to the Bible? How does it all fit with Armageddon?

To understand the gathering of Israel, we need to first understand who Israel is and then how they were scattered. If we don’t understand who was “scattered”, we don’t understand who is to be “gathered”.

Throughout time, people have been dispersed from their lands by war and takeovers. Sometimes by natural disasters. Presently, it is the biggest movement of people seen ever in the history of mankind.

“At mid-2023 as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order” -numbers 110 Million displaced people worldwide. (https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/)

Although not as high numbers in history, people were constantly displaced in the past as well. Babylon on purpose displaced the citizens of the northern Israel kingdom and urged their people to settle in that area instead. It was used as a tactic to prevent resistance. The more “spread” a population is among other people, the less influence and power they have and the more likely they are to adjust to their surroundings and the majority in the land. At least that was how it was. In our time such large groups of people have moved and settled close to each other so that their culture remains intact. As we see in Chinatowns in the USA, Muslim and Jewish neighborhoods, and so on.

The point here is that the Jewish people are not alone in being dispersed to new lands. The fact that the genetic Jews were scattered on several occasions does not simultaneously mean they are still the Israel to “be gathered”. Being scattered alone is not evidence of being chosen for “gathering”.

This is why it is important to understand that not all who are scattered are people God will gather. Only those who are part of His kingdom, His citizens of the New Jerusalem, a city which will be placed upon earth in the future.

In the past, Israel had been a great nation but because of unfaithfulness, they were, as God had said in advance, to be scattered and driven from the land. Note that their first two scatterings were a judgment from God or a consequence of their unfaithfulness:

“And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste” (Lev 26:33)

“And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the LORD shall lead you” (Deu 4:27)

“The LORD shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them: and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth,” (Deu 28:25)

“And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the LORD shall lead thee. …And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone.” (Deu 28:37 &64)

It was prophesied early on that they would not just be scattered, but become a part of the nations they went to. About Ephraim, the largest tribe forming the once Northern Israeli kingdom, it is said: “And his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it: he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations.” (Gen.48:19)

Jacob says he shall become a multitude of “goy” the expression used on any heathen nation in other places in the Bible. It is used on nations that are not Israel. It is clear here that what was the northern kingdom of Israel would later become many nations and forget even who they once came from.
(see Leviticus 26:33; Deuteronomy 4:23–27; 28:25, 37, 64). The first great scattering (also called the first diaspora) began when the Assyrians carried the ten tribes away into captivity (see 2 Kings 15:29; 17:6)

From this, it is fairly easy to understand that a part of Israel would never be gathered into one land, but remain these other nations. There would be no room in physical Israel to hold “a multitude of nations” (Gen.48:19)

This makes it only possible to gather a remnant in the physical country or the border would have to go over most of the Middle East, more than the land promised. This is what God said about the Babylonian captivity and the return: “For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness” (Isa 10:22)

“Yet, behold, therein shall be left a remnant that shall be brought forth, both sons and daughters: behold, they shall come forth unto you, and ye shall see their way and their doings: and ye shall be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, even concerning all that I have brought upon it.” (Eze 14:22)

As it was written, so it happened. After Babylon, only a remnant returned. The rest remained scattered and became a multitude of people, just like the tribe of Ephraim.

Why didn’t God include the rest of Israel when he gathered them for a second chance in the land? Because God only gathered the then faithful. Those who did not desire to follow the Lord, who became one with Assyria, Babylon, and where else they had been driven to, were not gathered and remained in their countries. Most of those scattered the first time do not even know they were once a part of the ancient of Israel, nor do they identify with their past. They don’t practice their ancestry religion and do as everyone else in the countries they ended up in. Most modern Jews do not know who they are genetically. Their DNA is diverse and shows different genetic forefathers, indicating that even though they are of Jewish descent, both males and females in their ancestry break the lineage and come from non-Jewish descent. They are mixed with the people of what nations they have lived. They are not a pure genetic race and never were.

Some Arabs have as much Jewish ancestry as Jews because both are of mixed race. Now, the government of Israel recently passed a law against gene testing, most likely because it has been proven that modern Jews are not a clearly defined genetic race. It is a religion first and foremost. Many Jews immigrating to Israel have less than 10% Jewish genes, the rest is mixed with European, Russian, African, and other Middle Eastern genes. Those mixed “goyim” genes are sometimes related to other Jewish mixed genes and sometimes therefore called fully Jewish when they are not. They see a link because if a few families a thousand years ago married, for instance, Spanish or German husbands and wives, many of the Jews

hundreds of years later will all have those Spanish and German ancestries in common. That does not make those genes Jewish ancestry, just because many Jews have them. The same genes do not have ancestry down to Biblical times and the Biblical land. Such is the case with many Ashkenazi Jews who connect as genetic cousins on genealogy sites, yet through non-Jewish genes as much as Jewish genes. If a mixed-gen pool marries each other, they will have a common mix pool. So if someone gets 100% Ashkenazi Jews on their test results, it does not mean they are 100% a descendant of Jacob. It just means they are 100% descendants of the first mix pool that was scattered and married in Germanic lands.
Mostly, those returning to modern “Israel” do it because they have kept the traditions of their religion and not because their race is clean. It is historically known that many emigrating from Eastern Europe and Russia were socialists and atheists with Jewish culture.

However, it is not to be questioned that most of the Jews returning to modern “Israel” now were part of the second scattering.

The second scattering happened when Rome destroyed Jerusalem and Jews were forced out of the land. But are these same to be gathered in the land once again? For two thousand years, Jews did not have a state in the former Judean and Israeli lands. Did God gather them again one last time? Are they Gods scattered people because of their descent, and if so, do the “multitude of GOYIM” that are also Gods scattered people have to return to the physical land as well? If we go by the flesh, yes. But God only gathered the faithful in the past. Also if we rate by the flesh, when are you supposed to go to Israel? Is 5% genetic Jewish ancestry enough, 10%, 25%, is 50% enough, or 100%? When we can’t even prove the right amount of ‘correct’ genetic make-up, then who shall go? Because Jewish genes are diverse and “watered out” the State of Israel has decided that only those who are a Jew by religion or have Jewish practicing parents, in some instances practicing grandparents, can return. The rest of the Jews, for instance, those who come from a family converted to Christianity, can not. That means that the modern state of Israel believes that not all Jewish ancestry is to return, only those who have rejected Christ. The State of Israel gathers the ones which the New Testament says have fallen away.

As we are about to see, the Jews which reject Christ are not God’s scattered people anymore, a new group is, and the Jewish nations, shockingly enough, are actually the ones who scattered and displaced them. 

The scattering of Gods of Israel

Jesus, Yehovah, is the King of God’s people. If someone rejects and disobeys the king, they are not His people but regarded as rebels. Jesus said to the Jewish leaders of his day: “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters” (Matt.12:30).

In this context, they had just called the miracles of Christ to be of Beelzebub, the prince of demons.

Jesus answered them:
“Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand” (v.25).

He spoke this of Satan’s kingdom, but the principle is also valid of God’s kingdom. If God’s people are against Him, the “house” will not stand, unless He only continues with those who are with Him. So Jesus said right after that those who are not with Him, scatter. The Jewish leaders who would not accept Christ as their Messiah and Lord caused the scattering of God’s people to take place. They are “the bad guys” scattering God’s true people, not the victims.

It was prophesied in Ezekiel 34:
“Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks? 
And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered. My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them. For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out.  As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment. And as for you, O my flock, thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I judge between cattle and cattle, between the rams and the he goats.  (Eze 34:2-5; 11-16)

Christ is that good shepherd prophesied. He also said: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (Joh_10:27)

But before He spoke this, He said about the Jews that rejected Him that they are not His sheep or part of His flock:

“Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.  Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me.  But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you” (Joh 10:24-26) 

Did it mean He rejected all Jews? No. It only means he rejected the part that would not follow Him. He continued with a remnant. Like Paul said: “I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin” (Rom 11:1)

He had not rejected Israel of the flesh, He had just been forced to continue with a remnant of them and let the other go. Just as he once did with the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel. He let the northern kingdom go and did not gather them.

Jesus is also clear that they need to be gathered to Him, and not alone to a land. If Christ is not king of Israel, there is no Israeli kingdom, only the illusion of one. The ancient physical land of Israel was a theocracy, with God on His throne amid them. Jesus dwelled above the Mercy Seat. Without Him, there is no real authentic land of Israel. It is a land of man’s creation, of man’s laws and man’s rules. Modern Israel does uphold laws that are similar to those given by God, but they have many that are not as well. The ancient kingdom of Hammurabi was also such a kingdom, he too upheld many of God’s laws and mixed them with his own. Babylon was good at that. Drinking of the cups of God’s temple while praising the gods of silver and gold. Taking something from the bible and adding your ways are not synonymous with honoring God, as King Saul experienced as well when the kingdom was taken from him and his descendants and given to David.

The story of Saul and David is compared to the Israel-by-the-flesh in more ways than that previously mentioned. Like Saul, they were anointed for their position as leaders of God’s people. But Saul combined disrespecting God’s authority with doing “deeds” and “rituals” to satisfy God. “And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed” (1. Sam.15:15)
He called his disobedience a sacrifice and celebration of God, but he only fooled himself.
God could not lead through Saul, yet at the same time, it looked like Saul was faithful and honored God. The prophet Samuel called his behavior idolatry. Although there were no graven images or gods, his rebellion was considered idolatry. “And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. 

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king” (1Sa 15:22-23) 

Just because God had anointed Saul did not mean He could not reject Him and anoint another. Another took “his office”.

When Saul realized he was rejected and possibly another anointed in his place, he started persecuting David and all who followed Him. He scattered David and his followers abroad, yet after some years he came to his end on the battlefield. Saul even killed all of God’s priests when he suspected they were loyal to David.

The same thing happened to the Judean state in the time of Jesus. When they realized Christ was God’s anointed, God’s priest and king, they became jealous and hostile. They could not control Jesus, and he called them out for their hypocrisy and trust in rituals for salvation. Christ appointed new “priests” and “leaders” and gave the Holy Spirit, just like he did when God elected people for leading positions in the past. The past became a prophecy, as we see Jehovah in the past, first He chose 12 brothers and then 70 elders. Likewise, we see Christ choosing 12 apostles and 70 new elders for the new church. (Exo 24:9; Luk.10:1; Exo.24:4; Matt.19:28).
Over and over again, Christ demonstrates how He repeats doing things similarly to before.

Not only did the Jewish leaders follow in Saul’s footsteps in rejecting to obey Jesus, their Lord, while claiming to honor God by doing appointed rituals, but they also did as Saul did and tried to kill God’s anointed, the Messiah. In the end, they did kill Him. And then, they started to persecute Christ’s followers.

Like Saul displaced and scattered David away from the land, so did the Jews do to Christ’s followers.

The Jews that DID NOT receive Christ are therefore those who scattered the true Israel, and not the scattered Israel. This is important to understand because there is a prophecy that God will punish those who scattered His true Israel in the end days. 

Meaning modern Israel is in for a surprise if they think God is coming to defend them, when in fact, He comes to judge them.

When Jesus was taken at Gethsemane he quoted the Bible: “And Jesus saith unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered” (Mar.14:27)

Notice especially that Christ is quoting the Old Testament and the prophet Zechariah (Ch. 13 v.7), and the scattering of Israel, and by it, He shows that the prophecies of the scattering of Israel, the ones who are to be gathered, are His sheep, His followers. By quoting this verse as He was captured to be executed, he identified the Christians as the true Israel mentioned in Zechariah and those doing the scattering that will be judged, the Jews that did not receive Him. If a Christian today claims Zechariah and the gathering of Israel are Christians, he will be rejected by most Christians as doing what is popularly called “replacement theory”. But it is actually one of the last things Christ does as he is taken captive, to make sure we understand that it is His faithful followers who are the true Israel mentioned in Zechariah that God will finally come to defend. Not before the Jews lay hand upon Him, does He identify who the prophecies in the Old Testament are speaking of. Naturally, because until that moment, the Jewish nations were still God’s people. Now they were divided, and the prophecies followed Christ’s followers and not the others, and so Christ is letting us know.
The Old Testament is now speaking of Christ’s Israel, not the Israel that rejected Him. Likewise, the prophecies, the promises of God fighting for His Israel and gathering them are about Christ’s sheep. 

The scattering of these sheep and the ones to blame, Christ tells us straight out, is done by the Jews who rejected him. They are the ones to “smite the Shepherd” causing His followers to be scattered. 

Just as Christ said it happened. The Jewish nation systematically chased their own brethren, by the flesh, out of the land for believing in Christ. “And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him” (Acts 8:1-2)

The Jews that rejected Christ “ran them out of town” so to speak. Was it Christ who took from His own followers Jerusalem and gave it to those who rejected Him? No, it was the enemies of Christ, those who were not “for Him” who scattered them and made now an unlawful claim to the land. 

But as time shows, and we will discuss in these articles, it would get even worse, and they would drive the scattered into the arms of “the man of sin” and indirectly “cause the truth to be trodden down”. The Jews scattering Christ’s followers had a great and lengthy consequence.

The high priest who ordered Christ’s death accidentally made a prophecy as he gave the death sentence:

“Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.  And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad” (Joh. 11:50-52)

Here we see that those scattered were to be gathered to Christ, not the land. The condition for the land to continue to be the capital of God’s people was their faithfulness, and they got 70 prophetic weeks to be faithful, and to receive Christ (Dan.9). Yet, when they did not, God’s people would be scattered as a result. Had they not rejected Christ, Jerusalem would have remained the center of truth throughout all ages. 

As it happened to Saul, it happened to the Jews that did not accept Christ: “But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.” (1Sa 16:14).
Saul would not give up his throne, palace, or title even though God had rejected him. So did the unfaithful Jews after chasing Christ’s followers away, they sat in Jerusalem and refused to give up their titles or office.
In the end, Saul became desperate and would rather consult his forefathers than go to the one God had chosen, which was David. Saul had a woman bring what appeared to be the ghost of Samuel, a dead prophet, to receive a word from him. It ended with Saul’s death. David took the throne, but he became a king over what was first a conflicted and confused people. Similarly, the Jewish nations, upon rejecting the Spirit telling them the truth about Christ, listened to evil spirits and put their trust in their deceased forefather’s heritage to be with them and guide them onward.

The true scattered Israel, Christ’s sheep, were not scattered because of unfaithfulness, but because of the Jewish leaders’ unfaithfulness. They can be compared to Ezekiel, Daniel, and his friends. They were driven out of Jerusalem even though they were faithful, because of their people’s unfaithfulness. Both the good and the bad among Judah were scattered to Babylon and the surrounding nations because of the unfaithfulness of the leaders in Jerusalem. 
And like Saul perished, those Jews relying upon their “flesh” and their “descent” to be saved, were themselves destroyed and scattered from the land.
When Saul saw he had been defeated fighting God’s enemy, he killed himself on the battlefield.
Many of the Jewish people, who had no problem driving their Christ-following Jewish brethren away from the land, ended as Saul ended. They, too, thought they fought God’s enemy when fighting Rome, and many ended up committing suicide when they realized they had lost. Today, we can still see the Jewish settlements on the top of Mount Masada, where almost a thousand Jews committed suicide once they realized they had been defeated. Thus, they ended exactly as Saul did. First anointed, then rejected, persecuting the new anointed who took their place, and then refusing to give up their land and title, fighting God’s enemies and losing and then ending their lives rather than converting. From then on, both those who scattered Christ’s followers and the Jews who rejected Christ were scattered abroad. But one party was innocent in their scattering and the other was the cause of the scattering, and it is important to know the difference.

The faithful who were scattered are prophesied to bring a blessing to wherever they were scattered: 

“And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the LORD, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men. 

And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep: who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver. Thine hand shall be lifted up upon thine adversaries, and all thine enemies shall be cut off” (Mic 5:7-9)

But to the unfaithful scattered, God says:

“And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste” (Lev_26:33).

“I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them” (Jer_9:16)

These are two different destinies for two different Israels’. Jews that rejected Christ were harshly treated everywhere they went, a “sword was drawn after them”. They still proclaim in their museums and books how unfairly and badly they have been treated. For almost two thousand years they have had conflicts wherever they ended up or went. And although Christians were severally persecuted as well, they sacrificed willingly to give a blessing of life to others. They became a “dew from the Lord”. Because of them, God blessed the West with prosperity, as long as His people were allowed to live in peace. The land that treated the true Israel of Christ right always prospered. In the end, this gave protestant nations the upper hand over all other countries. When they change how they treat God’s people, they will fall one by one. And so has God’s people been the “dew” in those lands. Accidents on sea and land have been prevented because of one of God’s people being a passenger. Such has it been always since God’s people were scattered. Those around take part in their blessings.

The Scattering of Truth

Because the Jewish leaders rejected Christ, David their king, and scattered Christ’s sheep, the truth was as a consequence scattered from Jerusalem as well.

“Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father” (Joh 4:21)

This was not because God had rejected Jerusalem, but because Jerusalem had rejected Him. According to Daniel 9, the city would have remained forever as God’s capital of truth if the Jewish leadership and the majority of the people were faithful.

Now Paul, from the tribes of Israel by the flesh, a part of the remnant, previously a citizen of Jerusalem, understood that they were scattered from physical Jerusalem: “The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come” (Heb.13: 11-14)

Christ has built the New Jerusalem in heaven prepared for the earth: “And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband”

It is to this city, that Christ will gather His people:

“And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped” (Rev 21:2  & Rev.14:16)

Jesus is Shiloh: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.” (Genesis 49:10)

He is the one who will gather people to Him. Not the United Nations, not the democratic state of Israel, but Christ. The gathering of those who scattered the real Israel is not a fulfillment of this prophecy. Any “gathering” not done by Christ’s second coming is a fraud, an imitation of the truth. Someone imitating Christ. Thus, it can be said that the state of Israel itself is a “false Christ”, or “false Messiah”. That is how serious this is.
Jesus warned: “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before” ( Mat 24:24-25).

Carrying the “star of David” on their flag symbolizing the messiah and “gathering” what is claimed to be His people, the State of Israel is actually playing “Christ”, making the state a false Christ. And many have fallen into the deception, even the elect.

The gathering will happen very differently when it is real. It will not happen through an earthly state but “For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matt.24:27)
When Christ comes to gather His people, they are not just situated in the country of Israel, they are still scattered all over the world (Because the real Israel has not been gathered yet):

“And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Mat 24:31) 

When this gathering is done: “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob” (Rom.11:26)

All of Israel is here the dew spread among the nations, a remnant of physical Israel and a remnant of converted gentiles, representing one fold with one shepherd.

When Jesus speaks of false Christs’ and to not be deceived about the gathering, that it will happen when He comes in the clouds and not before, He also finishes His speech by speaking of another gathering.

“For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together” (Matt.24:28) Here we see that when Christ comes, there has been a pre-gathering of those who are to be judged, the carcasses and the eagles. The deceived and the deceivers.

The False Gathering

Any gathering before Christ’s second coming is a fake gathering by the master of this world, the dragon. Satan’s key deception has throughout time been to imitate God. Now He is imitating Christ, and as Christ prophesied, Satan does it with signs and lying wonders. One of Christ’s greatest miracles was to gather the remnant back to Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity.

To be a false Christ, to imitate Christ, Satan has to gather a people to the land, with signs and wonder too. He has gathered the unfaithful, rebellious Jews who rejected Christ, in the hope they will do his bidding as they did in the past. Confusing Christianity, and manipulating so that the true Israel is called imposters and the truth to be scattered.  Jews, too, are deceived about themselves. The sign and wonder of gathering a remnant of Jews in the physical land of Israel has the world amazed, especially the Christian world. It is considered a miracle, and a miracle is thought to have to be from God. Because it looks like something God has done before and which is prophesied to happen again. Thereby, it is the perfect deception for Satan to pretend to be the God of Israel, performing these miracles.

If God gathered Jews by the flesh to the land, then to them that is evidence that they are the real Israel and the real people of God. So the Christians have rejected themselves and look to the Jewish nations, as the recipients of God’s promises to Israel.

The Bible is prophesying that Satan would try to make such a gathering.

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! 
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. 
Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit” (Isa 14:12-15)

“I will sit upon the mount of the congregation”. Here the Hebrew read: “har mô‛êd”, which does not speak of just any congregation. It speaks of Jerusalem. It does not speak of just any gathering, it speaks of the gathering of Israel during the Lord’s feasts. These gatherings took place three times a year:

“Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the LORD, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts (mô‛êd).” (Lev 23:2)

“Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles: and they shall not appear before the LORD empty” (Deu 16:16)

This place became the mountain that God had chosen. The Mount Moriah. This is where God sat in His temple, dwelled above His throne, and where Israel and Judah came on the times of gathering and gathered with him in His dwelling.

Christ no longer dwells in Jerusalem and so God’s people have to look to the tabernacle in heaven and the throne there, to the promised Jerusalem there, and gather in spirit on the feasts, just like Jesus said to the Samaritan woman.

But Satan’s dominion is here on earth. He cannot do what Christ will do, gather His people to the New Jerusalem in heaven. So he creates an imitation, an unholy gathering, here on earth, to mimic the gathering of God. For the eagles and the carcasses. He does it to take people’s attention from the truth and to God’s requirements, and to make people trust in a lie.

He wishes to sit, symbolically speaking, on the mount of assembly, to gather an unholy gathering of those who have departed from the truth but still claim God’s name and God’s promises. Presently, Old Jerusalem is a confused city, where all those Satan has deceived have gathered from the nations in the confused belief they are God’s chosen people, although they have apostatized from the truth. The Orthodox Church departed from Christ’s culture and teaching and relied on the commandments of men. The Catholic Church, which claims to be Christ’s voice on earth and man’s salvation, all lies. To the protestants who continue to uphold the errors of the Roman church and who have continued apostate and pagan culture and have not reformed back to Christ and His kingdom. To the Muslims who declared Christ to be only a prophet and not Jehovah or the Son of God and have instituted their man-made culture, following their leaders before God. And to the Jews, who rejected their Messiah and their Lord, yet still claim to be His chosen people in front of the entire earth. The truth is still “run out of town” and the courts of the Lord are still trampled upon by gentiles, those who have rejected His authority.

Satan has made his unholy gathering and continues to do so. You can go to physical Jerusalem and have your pick among the unholy gatherings, whoever succeeds in deceiving you. However, his attempts will come to an end. As Revelation 16 prophecy, while Satan is busy with his unholy gathering, having a false people gathered for every main deception he ever conducted to wound Christ’s assembly, Christ “will come as a thief” and defeat them. (Rev.16:15)

The land belongs to Christ’s faithful followers, but He has asked them not to take it from either Muslims, Jews, or apostate Christians, but to wait for His intervention. This war will be fought by Jehovah and not His people.

“The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem” (Zec 12:1-2)

Remember, it’s the next chapter Christ quotes when He says His followers are Judah and Israel, the ones to be saved against this madness Satan will create. Throughout time, many have come against Jerusalem, besieged it, and taken it. Rome, Byzantine people, different Islamic groups, crusaders, Ottomans, Brits, and lastly the modern state of Israel, claiming to be the same Jews to whom was promised this land. None of these kingdoms did or will stand and remain. The new Jerusalem is in heaven to be placed on earth. The Jerusalem that is now is not the Jerusalem of the promise. Like Paul said: “But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.  For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.  But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all” (Gal 4:23-26)

Physical Jerusalem was said to be in bondage when it was under Jewish control, a leadership that rejected Christ, as declared by Paul himself, an Israelite, while the Jews still had the land. Then the same people taking control again, still represents bondage. They have no atonement for their sin without Christ and remain bound to their sins and delusions. 

Christ said the mountain in Jerusalem would for a time not be used for gathering to Him anymore when the Samaritan woman wondered where to go and worship. We know from the book of Daniel that this was a direct result of the Jewish nation rejecting Him.

When Satan has made it a place for gathering for those who listen to him but deceive in God’s name, we know it is not God’s gathering. It is not Christ’s gathering, but that which was prophesied as the gathering of the dragon, the false prophet, and the beast. The carcasses and the eagles.

As modern “Israel” has taken control over this area, the two powers that Satan used to kill Jesus and scatter God’s true Israel away from Jerusalem, the Roman pontiff and the Jewish leadership, are again working against the truth. And the “real Israel” is claimed to be impostors and hated by Jews and Christians alike. For where there is a counterfeit, the original is despised.

The book of Revelation portrays what we have looked at here. We see a woman, representing God’s people, clothed in the sun with the moon under her feet. The moon represents what has been. The moon does not have light on its own, it just reflects the light from the sun. Because God’s days begin at night, the moon is seen before the sun. In the same way, the sanctuary system given to Israel was a symbol of Christ and pointed to Him. The woman having the moon under her feet and clothed in the sun reveals that she represents faithful Israel before and after Christ. Having the symbol of Christ under her feet, while clothed in the truth of whom the symbols pointed to.
She brought the world Christ, the Jewish nation was still God’s people until he was rejected. Then we see the woman is scattered but preserved: “And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God” (Rev.12:6) 

Here Christ reveals that the woman, His people, are now translated into His followers.

We then see Satan going after her: “And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child”

Because Christ’s followers are a continuation of Israel, they are said to have brought forth the child. To leave us no room for doubt, Christ again specified:

“And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev.12:17) The remnant of Israel (woman with child) that gave us Christ, are the followers of Christ (remnant of her seed).

One Fold – One Israel

Article series: INTRODUCTION – WHO IS JEHOVAH? – WHO IS THE REAL ISRAEL – THE SCATTERING – THE GATHERING: ONE-FOLD – ONE ISRAELTHE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL NOT CHOSEN – DANIEL 9 AND THE PRE-TRIBULATION DECEPTION – JUDAISM ACE IS NOT A GODLY REPRESENTATION OF OT – THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL – THE DIFFERENCE (between Biblical Israel taking of Canaan and modern Israel taking of Palestine)

Exploring Romans 11: Will Jews convert and be God’s Israel once again?

Misunderstanding Paul’s wording in Romans 11 has bound many Christians into the belief that Jews who rejected Christ are still God’s people and will return to God one day. The establishment of the state of Israel is by many considered the beginning of Paul’s prophecy.

“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. 
And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: 
For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins” (Rom 11:25-27)

Perhaps changing the word “until” to the Greek meaning of the same word “while” would have avoided all this misunderstanding, but is the choice of the translators. Is Paul here speaking of the secret of the Jewish conversion in some distant future, or has Paul’s meaning been twisted by false teachers and how the translation is?

Paul’s meaning is clear throughout the 11^th chapter and the rest of the chapter has to explain this one verse, further revelations in scripture must match this one.

Do we interpret it to mean that Jews who rejected Christ are predestined to convert, or is there a misunderstanding here? Christ never forces anyone to follow Him, never has.

If Paul says the mystery is that God will reject the Jewish people but save a remnant in the end, it means that God has not shown mercy upon the many Jews living in the time between then and now. This is nonsensical because God cares for all men, Jews, and pagans alike. He would not prevent the conversion of the Jewish people before the end because that suits His plan to only win them then. God tries to save every individual He can at any day of age.

This leaves us with two options;

1- God foresees that many Jews will convert in the end, despite generational rejection. This is indeed wonderful and possible. As said to the prophet Daniel about the time of the end: “Knowledge shall increase and many shall travel here and fro”. (Dan.12:4) An increase in knowledge means more converted, it is a natural sequence but hardly a mystery. Paul describes the Jews as “natural branches” cut off God’s tree because of unfaithfulness and, if grafted again, grafted to their tree naturally (Rom.11:24). What is a greater mystery, a branch grafted to its own tree, or a “were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree”? Paul is clear that a Jewish conversion is not a greater mystery or achievement than a pagan conversion. A Jewish conversion therefore cannot be both a mystery and natural at the same time.

If Romans 11:25-27 is meant to speak of Jews converting in the future, it still does not prophecy the State of Israel. Because God does not need a “State of Israel” to save Jews. The two are not synonymous. Before, Jews lived among Christians and had to converse and deal with them daily all over the world. This led to many converted Jews, which is why the Jewish leaders in each place encouraged Jews to create locked communities wherever they lived. Avoiding as much contact with Christians as possible. The state of Israel took the Jews who were spread among the Christians and secluded them in a land where they only learned from each other daily. The result was a stronger identity in the rejection of Christ for many, and others no longer in small groups abroad, became atheists. A study quoted in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz shows that only 30% of Israelis say they are religious. (https://www.haaretz.com/2015-04-14/ty-article/israel-china-among-least-religious-nations/0000017f-e103-d804-ad7f-f1fb55ca0000 )

This indicates that after the birth of the State of Israel, there are fewer spiritual Jews, not more.
Paul is not prophesying the State of Israel in Romans 11, as that is not synonymous with a “state of conversion”. Those Jews who returned to the land after the Babylonian captivity had to convert before returning. It was God’s condition to return them that their conversion happened wherever they had been scattered to. Thus, the belief that God gathered modern Jews to the state of Israel to convert them contradicts God’s order and law. Returning to the land was a reward for their conversion, not the means to produce one.

“And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath driven thee, And shalt return unto the LORD thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and That then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee” (Deu.30:1-3)
Those who claim they are to return before they convert, speak neither truth nor light: “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isa.8:20)

Solomon understood this sequence and prayed according to it, a prayer God said He would hear.

“If they sin against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near; Yet if they shall bethink themselves in the land whither they were carried captives, and repent, and make supplication unto thee in the land of them that carried them captives, saying, We have sinned, and have done perversely, we have committed wickedness; 
And so return unto thee with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies, which led them away captive, and pray unto thee toward their land, which thou gavest unto their fathers, the city which thou hast chosen, and the house which I have built for thy name: Then hear thou their prayer and their supplication in heaven thy dwelling place, and maintain their cause” (1. King.8:46-49)

Christ was clear, the only accepted repentance was acknowledging Him as their Lord (Mat 23:39). Jews need atonement to receive God’s approval and a return, an atonement only given through Christ. Thus, the modern Jews who have returned to the state of Israel, by not accepting Christ, and by not inviting the Christian converts to come as well, do not fulfill the requirements to return. Worse; they defy Christ’s word and conditions for returning.

If Paul is prophesying the return of many spiritually blinded Jews, he is prophesying their conversion to Christ, not to a land.
It is a natural consequence of the world being more enlightened and people less isolated because of the internet, many Jews will convert to Christ in the end time – However, this cannot, in my opinion, be what Paul is here speaking of. For then “the whole of Israel saved” is rejecting the fact that Jews for 2000 years have been lost, and only a remnant at the end will be saved and this is the “whole of Israel”. Which makes little sense. The mystery Paul is speaking of has to be something else than some speculate.

2. – The second option to understand this verse is if a word in there should have been translated to English a little differently. If we are to compare with the rest of the New Testament, the secret of the gospel at that time when it was written, was that the invitation extended to the heathens as well as Jews. It took a while for the apostles to understand, and they even needed a push, to preach to the heathens (Mat 15:23; Joh 4:9; Acts.10:45; Gal.2:12). They wondered greatly when Christ preached to non-Jews. They debated it after Christ left when Peter had seen pagans receive the Holy Spirit (Acts.11). This was the great “secret” that pagans were to become part of Christ’s Israel and be equal to Jewish converts.

This is the secret: “the fullness of the Gentiles” has to come “in” so that “all Israel shall be saved”. This understanding fits with Christ’s own message: “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. … And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd” (Joh.10:11,16)

Here Christ speaks of Israel, and that people of another “fold” have to be brought in to create “one fold”. If this is what Paul meant, it is echoing Christ’s words and not a new doctrine by Paul.

Earlier in chapter 11, Paul explains how he is part of the remnant of Israel, those who received Christ. He is part of that remnant in his day. He then explains that Israel is like a tree with branches, and the gentiles are “grafted in” to this tree that is Israel. While those who reject Christ of “the natural branches” are cut off, meaning they are no longer part of Israel.

The modern state of Israel is a “cut off branch” from the real Israel, but no longer God’s Israel. As Paul states, if individual Jews convert they are put back upon the tree, and so it has been throughout time.
The word Jews is in the Bible not just used on a people, but also of a state of mind: “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: 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”. ” (Rom 2:28-29) In Revelation this notion is repeated when Christ says someone claims to be Jews but are not.

The stem of God’s tree is not a Jewish state or the state of Israel, it is Jehovah and His law and prophets.

The letter of Romans was written by Paul while he was in Corinth. He wrote chapter 11 while there, and this is also when he was treated badly by Jewish brethren and this happened: “But when they opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent of it. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” (Acts 18:6)

Paul understood that for Christ to return “the other fold” had to come in, and this is why he focused upon them rather than the “spiritually blinded” part of the Jews.

The sequence of events is explained by Christ. He said to the disciples: “These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not:  But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mat 10:5-7)

The first to be reached was the genetic Israel. When this was done, they were sent to all the world with the gospel: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Mat 24:14) 

Notice that the message is the same to Israel as to “all nations”: “the kingdom of heaven” and “this gospel of the kingdom”. It is Christ’s kingdom. Christ’s state.

This is repeated in Revelation where an angel carries a message to worship God, their creator, that is to go not just to Jews but to: “to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people …Fear God, and give glory to him” (Rev.14:6-7)
So the plot is explained fairly well here and in other places. God planned to first reach Judah and then as many of physical Israel wherever they are scattered, and then the offer is to be given to the whole world. Once those who receive salvation “come in” the fullness of all who are called are come in, then Christ will have “one fold”, “the whole of Israel”. The “whole” is not everyone, if it was, then all Jews and all Gentiles would be saved. This is not “the whole” meant in Paul’s letter. He means that those of the Jews that convert to Christ and those coming in from the Gentiles will together form “a whole”. A new whole. Meaning a complete “fold” as Christ said. This was the secret to many, that the long-awaited Messiah of the tribe of Judah would not save His people and start His kingdom until “the fullness of the pagans came in”. This was the whole plan from the very beginning, from when Israel was called out of Egypt to be a kingdom of priests. To bring the truth about God and His law and atonement to the world. But instead of doing this, they copied the pagans, and they kept their knowledge and practice to themselves and would not share it or win others to it. Instead of seeing themselves as God’s diplomats, they felt superior to others and did not evangelize their God. God’s plan did not change, and instead, He commissioned the apostles, the seventy chosen and the first Christians to do the job Judah had not wanted to do: to reach the rest of the world.
The secret was therefore not that Jews would convert, they were the natural “branches”, but that pagans would be “grafted in” before Christ’s kingdom could start. Christ is not waiting for blinded Jews to convert, but for those who had not had the chance to hear the gospel, to hear it. Then, as Christ said, “Then shall the end come”.

There is no additional time, or a return to a Jewish state and another attempt there. Everyone has to convert first, wherever they are, then Christ will come and gather His people when He comes. The Bible teaches it was first the Jews, then Israel, then the pagans, and then “the end” comes.

The invitation and call to the pagans were prophesied several times in the Old Testament.
“Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.  … He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law” (Isa.42:1.4)

While Jews hoped Messiah came to deliver them and rule over the world and over the Gentiles with “an iron rod”, they failed to see that the Messiah wanted to save the Gentiles and invite them to become part of Israel. (Rev.19:15; Rom 2:10-11) The “iron rod”, spoke of the final judgment on all mankind. This idea was resisted.
“Do not let the son of the foreigner Who has joined himself to the Lord Speak, saying,
“The Lord has utterly separated me from His people” From Isaiah we see that God also in the Old Testament invited the stranger to come and worship and be one with His people if he wished: “ Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, …Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer…mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people. ..The Lord GOD which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered unto him.” (Isa.56:3-8)

The truth comes from the Jews

So why does Paul say: “For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: 

Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen” (Rom 9:3-5)

This is a valuable and powerful statement that can save someone from deception if understood correctly. If the wrong meaning is taken out, then it only serves to confuse. Paul, sometimes, explains things in a more complicated way than many “uneducated” can comprehend, as Peter said about Paul’s writings (2.Pet.3:15-16). Most likely Paul wrote as academics would write in his time because unlike the fishermen Peter and John and others with more common professions, Paul had been educated at rabbi schools and was a pharisee (Php.3:5, Act 22:3). This might explain why the letters of Peter, John, and James are straightforward and easy to understand even when translated, while Paul often argues back and forth before giving his conclusion. A very different approach, easily misunderstood, especially when he gives attention to what people say and then his response to it, appearing as both is his opinion to the modern reader. It was, in fact, common among the ancient Greek style of writing (Aristotelian Argument) to first introduce an issue, then present the case, then address the opposition, provide proof, and then present a conclusion. While Paul does communicate as a learned man of his day to some degree, it causes great confusion if everything he says is Paul’s conclusion. A lot of Paul’s style of writing is lost to modern readers and some in his day who were classified as uneducated. One such example is when Paul discusses God’s law when it appears as if he dismisses it but then concludes that the law is good and not abolished (Rom.3:31; 1. Tim.8:1) Many Christian doctrines are solely built upon the same ideas that Paul argues, rather than the conclusions he gives to the same questions.

So, is Paul saying in Romans 9 that God’s people are the genetic Israeli people, regardless of what they do or believe because they were once given “the covenant” and “the promise”?
In the next verse, Paul says: “Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. 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” (Rom 9:6-8)

Paul, here, explains that just like not all of Abraham’s children of the flesh inherited the promise given to Abraham, not all Israel by flesh are inherits of the promise either.

What many think Paul is saying is that everything belongs to those of the flesh, despite that he is himself explaining his meaning is the opposite.

Jesus explained the same in a straightforward way in His address to the Samaritan woman: “The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.  Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews” But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him” (Joh 4:19-23) 

Why did Jesus not say salvation came from Him? Why say it came from the Jews, the same Jews that He knew were about to end His life?`And this is the point of the matter also explained by Paul.

Jews needed to receive Christ as their King and Savior. The Jew had to understand that the law and the prophets spoke of Him.

But when Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman, He made it a point for her to understand that Messiah’s mission was explained in the Jewish system, and not theirs or other pagan.

The truth, the promises, the culture, and the law, had been entrusted to the Jews and the gospel was to be built upon those truths given to them and not a different religious understanding. For her, it was important that she understood that the foundation of Christ’s mission was the truth given to the Jews.

This is also Paul’s point. Not to say that Jews who rejected Christ are still Israel of the promise and continue to have claim on God’s promises, but that the pagans who had “been grafted in” on the tree, need to understand that this is the tree they are grafted upon. They are taking part in the blessing given to physical Israel and the Jews, and the gospel belongs in this setting and not in a pagan or another religious setting.

Basically, Paul was teaching the pagans not to change the foundation of the gospel and create a separate religion. This is very fitting advice, considering how the Roman church ended up doing just that, rejecting the Jewish roots and adding pagan roots in its place. Both Christ and Paul are warning against such a move. Separating Judaism and Christianity caused division of what was supposed to be united, and it was against God’s will. The Jews who rejected Christ did their part as well in creating this division. The Roman Church and the Jews-by-Flesh together succeeded in destroying the witness of the gospel by separating the law and the prophets from the gospel. The Jews claimed to keep the law and the Roman church claimed to keep the gospel. Both are now in ignorance of their own impending doom. They worked together in pulling the two witnesses apart, with equal guilt. 

The truth Paul explains in his letter is the same truth given to the Samaritan woman, which is that the gospel and Christ are only understood correctly by uniting it with “the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;  Whose are the fathers…”

Yet although given the key to unlock the mystery of redemption, only by accepting Christ, would they truly be God’s “Israel”.

Paul explaining the “grafting in” of the pagans is again to prevent the idea that gentiles are to transform their religion and call it by Christ’s name. And to, despite facing resistance by many Jews, not hate them or reject them. Instead, to feel blessed by them and their history and experience with God. And to hope, pray, and expect many to turn back to God and be “re-branched”.

The first headquarters of the gospel messengers was Jerusalem, and the first preachers were Jews. But the Roman church transferred this headquarters to Rome and changed the fundament to which people understand the gospel.

Thus, the letter to the Romans stands the test of time and exposes their folly.
However, this move could not have happened if the Jewish leaders had not scattered the true Israel from the land.

Jesus started preaching to His Jewish brethren to reach them first with the gospel. He also preached to the Samaritans, who had in part the truth but were deceived on several matters. He clarified to them that the Jews were on the right side of the argument when it came to their long-standing differences. He then sent out His apostles to preach to the “lost” from the tribes of Israel. The reason they received the truth first was because they were closer to the truth and were better equipped to preach to the pagans all over the world. They were commissioned to enlighten the world on His identity and purpose. So as God designed it, it happened. The Bible which speaks to billions worldwide every day is written by Jews. Christians are being educated through scripture, again educated by Jews. Faithful Jews. Learning from Israel’s history, learning from the covenants given to them, their relationship with God, their failures, and their prophets. And lastly, from the lion of Judah, Christ, who was born a Jew. The whole Bible is a Jewish book. Every page, in the New Testament, is a gift from God through the Jews. They were entrusted with the truth, they have the history, that is to form the foundation of the Christian believer.

All of this is the fulfillment of the promises given to physical Israel, and God kept His word. The fulfillment is not, however, placed upon the Jews who rejected their own Lord. They are no longer grafted in. They are no longer part of God’s Israel, even if they call themselves Israel. They lost the opportunity to educate the world. The meaning of Paul is the importance of seeing how everything was fulfilled through the Jewish people, and this is not to be placed on the disobedient Jews of today.

Paul also calls for respect for what the Jewish people have given, and any persecution against Jews throughout time by Christians is not God’s design.  Christians have not been called to persecute anyone, let alone their own blinded brothers. You cannot cure the hardness of the heart with more hardness. Only love can give birth to love. So any Christian should pray for and love those who are spiritually blinded, not hate them.

But loving them is not giving them a false idea that they are the “real Israel” in their spiritually blinded state. Only by converting can they be grafted back into the “real Israel”. The fold that was the remnant of Israel by flesh who has preached and saved those willing and receiving the gospel from the Gentiles, this is the real Israel. The “spiritually blinded Jews” have to join this group, this tree.

Replacement theory

God’s Israel was never taken from the Jewish people and given to the Christian people. God’s Israel followed the line of the Jewish people through Christ, His disciples, the seventy chosen, and the tribes of Israel, through a Jewish book, the New Testament, and then also with the “grafted in gentiles”. Israel was not taken from one and given to another. Israel continued with the faithful remnant, and they became the teachers and the forefathers through whom gentiles were reached and added. Thus, God’s Israel is not a replacement theory, it is a continuation with a remnant and the “adopted” into the family. And those Jews who rejected being part of Christ’s leadership and kingdom, were, as they wished, removed from “the tree”.

Replacement theory is not saying that Gentiles are now part of Israel. The Bible says they are.
Rather, replacement theory is both the lie of the Roman church and that of the Jewish church;

1. The Roman church preaches replacement theory, by removing the gospel of Christ from the Jewish God-given culture and then replacing the foundation of God with the foundation of man. By removing the base of the gospel, Christianity has become a replacement theory, and a separate religion altogether. God continued with a remnant who were faithful, and not the Roman church.

2. Replacement theory is also taking the promises given to the remnant faithful of God, they who received Christ and preached to the whole world the offer of salvation, and giving those promises to the Jews that rejected God instead. Stealing from the faithful Jews, from Moses and the prophets, from the true meaning of the law and the culture, and claiming the real Israel is those who misunderstood and disobediently persecuted Christ and His followers in words and actions, is another form of “replacement theory”. We take from those God has said are the faithful Israel and claim God’s promises are for the unfaithful broken-off branches instead. Peter, John, James, and everyone they reached is then rejected for the sake of the descendants of the Pharisees that scattered them, which is an insult to God. It is also contrary to Israel’s history as recorded in the law and the bible. God never chose the disobedient remnant over the obedient remnant.

Understanding who the real Israel is, we will understand that it is blessing them that will give a returned blessing, not giving money to the modern state of Israel and their warfare.

Article series: INTRODUCTION – WHO IS JEHOVAH? – WHO IS THE REAL ISRAEL – THE SCATTERING – THE GATHERING: ONE-FOLD – ONE ISRAELTHE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL NOT CHOSEN – DANIEL 9 AND THE PRE-TRIBULATION DECEPTION – JUDAISM ACE IS NOT A GODLY REPRESENTATION OF OT – THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL – THE DIFFERENCE (between Biblical Israel taking of Canaan and modern Israel taking of Palestine)

I was once in a meeting in the synagogue where Christians and Jews gathered to hear a speaker from Israel defending its right to defend itself against the Palestinians. During the talk, the question about Jesus came, and he answered to the amusement of everyone there: “When our Messiah comes we will ask him: Have you been here before? And if he says “yes”, we will believe him”. Everyone laughed. 

For a long time, many evangelicals have believed in a pre-rapture where the Christians are brought to heaven and a Jewish kingdom simultaneously begins here on earth. The Jews get another chance to choose Christ. The promises of the greatness of their kingdom, not fulfilled at Christ’s first coming, will happen then.

Unfortunately, if this interpretation is false, it means that both the evangelical and the Jew are in for a great end-time surprise, finding themselves unprepared for the deceptions of Satan. If the warnings in Revelation are to Christians, and they think it is going to happen to the Jews after they have gone to heaven, they will miss out on both a warning meant for them and advice on how to be saved through the trials.

For the Jew, it is problematic if he thinks he can wait to make up his mind about following Jesus until Jesus comes. When Jesus comes, it will be too late.

The pre-tribulation doctrine entered the masses in the evangelical churches through Scofield’s commentary Bible. It was a successful Jesuit attack on the protestant churches.

When the reformation became more and more influential in the 16^th Century, the Papacy instituted a society, their primary task was to combat the reformation by slowly changing their doctrines and to create division among them to weaken their progress.

No protestant would listen to what the Catholic Church had to say anymore because they believed the Pope was the Antichrist. One of the key goals was to come up with an alternative belief to who the Antichrist was and move it away from the Papacy and to an unknown figure in the future. They had to create a new common enemy. Then they had to infiltrate this idea into Protestantism and make them think it was their own idea and understanding. When this had been accomplished, the gap between them would be small enough to pull the Protestants towards submission to the Catholic Church once again. If the Papacy was not the Antichrist, then they should cooperate against the real Antichrist, right?
The idea they presented was that the temple mentioned as the place where “the man of sin” would sit wasn’t God’s congregation. Nor was it the individual believer like Paul said (1Co,3:16, 1Co,6:19, 2Co,6:16) but a physical building. Not just any physical building, but the Jewish Temple itself. And that the Antichrist would sit in this temple. Since there was no temple in Jerusalem anymore, it had to talk about some distant future.

This way they could slowly bring Protestantism back to themselves under the guise that they are all Christians with a common enemy, this future mystic person.

In 1585, Jesuit Francisco Ribera and Robert Bellarmine started writing down these ideas of the future Antichrist and that the papacy was the wrong person. Slowly the ideas were planted among the Protestants, but not really received. The understanding that the Papacy was the Antichrist and would lead people into false Christianity and damnation, had deep roots. 
The Jesuit ideas were spread slowly and quietly.
In 1744 Morgon Edwards shared similar thoughts with a Baptist college creating more interest in the alternative future antichrist.
In 1791 – Manuel De Lacunza (1731–1801), a Jesuit from Chile, wrote a manuscript in Spanish titled under the pen name of Juan Josafa [Rabbi] Ben-Ezra. Lacunza wrote under a Jewish name to hide the fact that he was a Catholic. The idea was that the Jewish name would give his book better acceptance in Protestantism, his intended audience. He also gives this futuristic interpretation in his book.

The idea became more and more accepted, but only by a smaller protestant minority. However, there were some problems with this theory. There was no Jewish state and no Jewish temple for the antichrist to sit in. It made the idea seem unlikely and distant. This was one of the biggest problems when introducing this idea. To have an Antichrist in a physical Jewish temple, the temple had to be rebuilt and in order for the temple to be rebuilt, Jerusalem would have to be a Jewish state. The first attempt to point out an Antichrist was to divert it from the papacy and to a Jew. If the Jews created a state in Jerusalem, the Protestants would be convinced the doctrine was correct and completely abandon the Pope as the Antichrist and look for this mystic one to come. But Jerusalem was protected by the Turks. Their mosques were on the site of the temple. The Turks had to go.

In 1826 Samuel Roffey Maitland the Archbishop of Canterbury, presented the futuristic idea and it was spreading
And in 1827 Edward Irving, a Scottish Presbyterian and forerunner of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, translated Lacunza’s (the Jesuit pretending to be a Jew) work from Spanish into English.

In 1830, John Nelson Darby presented even further speculation and theories concerning this same topic, backing up the other’s view.

To have an Antichrist in a Jewish temple, you had to have a Jewish temple, to have a Jewish temple you need a Jewish state in Jerusalem and to have that, Jews had to return in large numbers to Israel. But Jews had not turned away from their defiance or met God’s criteria to rule from their land as they once had. Jesus had said that their living peacefully in their land was tied to their acceptance of Him. (Luk.19,41-44; Matt.23,38-39; Joh.4,23)
If the Jews were to come back, it would have to be because God gave them the land, but they hadn’t met God’s criteria and didn’t seem to want to and so the theory that there was one salvation for Jews and another for Christians was created to make all of this make sense. Before, there had only been one salvation and one destiny, regardless of who you were. (Col.3:11; Gal.3:28; Rom.10:12)
Now, this view has changed. The idea was that Jews would get their messianic experience and a second chance after a rapture of Christians was introduced. With this theory, people would accept the Jews returning even though they hadn’t accepted Christ as the Messiah. This, as we saw in the previous chapter, is against God’s Torah where God said a conversion has to happen while they are scattered in the foreign lands. This is God’s law — and the order of things.
It was not considered an insult to God creating a theory where if the Jews did not like the humble self-sacrificing messiah, then it was the messiah who “came in the wrong way” and had to change his approach and come as a political hero just as they wanted. 
To help unconverted Jews return to the land without conversion is a violation of God’s Torah. This did not stop Christians. They believed Jews would get the land back even though they hadn’t accepted Christ, as their election was by heritage and not by faith. The idea was that God’s people weren’t those who did God’s will, but those who were born that way.  The hypocrisy of the theory was evident as many of Jewish descent were no longer Jewish, and even numerous Muslims were actually at one time Jews before they converted. And so it wasn’t about being of Jewish descent in reality, it was about being of Jewish descent and rejecting Christ, as no interest was given to Jews with other ideologies. When you start a series of lies, it becomes a web of lies with holes and inconsistencies. 

Although the doctrine was becoming complicated, larger and more influential groups now believed it. Scriptures from the Bible about the return of Israel from Babylon were now used to support a future gathering of Jews in Palestine. Or they would use scriptures referring to Christ’s second coming and the gathering then. All the scriptures the Bible had about Jews being God’s people were no longer tied to converted Jews but to the unconverted. In other words, to be accepted and blessed, you had to be a Jew who denied Christ as the Messiah. The ideas were more and more widespread and bible verses were picked and put together with no respect for other scripture saying something different, and they were placed together to make it all seem Biblical.
The more widespread the idea got, the more they realized that in order for Jesus to come back they had to have a Jewish state. Jesus had said that He would come back when the gospel had been spread to the world: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.» (Mat 24:14) Yet now another stumbling-stone had been placed in the path of the evangelical’s understanding. A Jewish state had to be made in order for the end-time events, as they saw it, could happen and Jesus to come. But nothing seemed to happen to make it happen, and the larger group of Jews themselves seemed to want to wait until their Messiah came to do it. The Christians then took it upon themselves to fulfill what they believed was a prophecy. If God would not, they would make it happen themselves. A smaller group of Jews had themselves started a Zionist movement to return, as they believed the land was still theirs, and they were also inspired by the evangelicals to their presumed right to the land. Together, the evangelicals and Zionists would push for the creation of the new Jewish state.
The problem with protestants actively wanting to fulfill their perception of the prophecy was crazy, as they needed a Jewish state for the Antichrist to come and deceive the whole world. Why would Christians want to engage in making the way for what they believed was the end-time deceiver? Were they now preparing the way for the antichrist? New theories were added to the theory to justify it: Jesus was to rule in Jerusalem with the Jews, and the Christians were to be raptured to heaven before the end time trouble began. This legitimized it being a preparation for Christ and not just the Antichrist. And the theory of the pre-tribulation rapture was used to make this complicated end-time understanding fit with the Bible. Either way, they needed a Jewish state, and so now they were gathering them for Christ’s sake so He could make their kingdom with them and not just prepare the way for the Antichrist. Their actions now seemed a bit more legit. Another problem came up with this theory. Many evangelicals now ended up believing that same wrong understanding that the Jews had believed, which once made them unprepared for the first coming of the Messiah. Now they believed what the Jews believed then and still do. Only the Christians needed the Antichrist first, and so they could not wait for Jesus to establish the Jewish state. While the Jews, in reality, were supported in the belief that made them reject Christ in the first place.

Many Christians were again doing what the Jews in the time of Christ had done, to turn the matter from spiritual obedience to a physical kingdom.
Protestants and evangelicals started paying out of their pockets to send Jews to what was then known as Palestine, which once had been the Jewish state in Biblical times. Christian missionaries went to Palestine, often even endangering their life trying to convert Jews or to help them understand “their role” in the end time. All this was done, and few were aware that they were fulfilling ideas that had been planted in their churches by the Jesuit organization, which wanted to bring protestants back into accepting the Pope as the Christian leader. 

The British Literalists–strong among the Anglican Evangelicals and in various Nonconformist churches–were not about to abandon their hopes of converting Jews and sending them to Palestine to meet their Messiah, especially not around 1840 when the current British policy of offering protection to Jews living in Palestine raised great expectations among the pre-millennialists. Indeed, Literalist influence was unofficially helping to shape that policy. An ardent Literalist, Lord Ashley (later the Earl of Shaftesbury), was stepson-in-law and confidant of Lord Palmerston, the British foreign secretary. Ashley had private hopes of bringing about, through British action, the restoration of Israel to Palestine in preparation for the Second Advent. In 1840, he prodded Palmerston, by adducing political reasons, into seeking international backing for Jewish migration to Palestine, while he confided to his diary his own very different motives, which were distinctly religious:

“Dined with Palmerston. After dinner left alone with him. Propounded my scheme, which seemed to strike his fancy . . . . Palmerston has already been chosen by God to be an instrument of good to His ancient people; to do homage, as it were, to their inheritance, and to recognize their rights without believing their destiny . . . . I am forced to argue politically, financially, commercially; these considerations strike him home; he weeps not like his Master over Jerusalem, nor prays that now, at last, she may put on her beautiful garments.  (Anthony Ashley, Earl of Shaftesbury, Diary entries, quoted in Edwin Hodder, The Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, vol. 1, pp. 310, 311. Ashley was the one referred to, but not named (in London Times, Aug. 17, 1840, p. 3, col. 5), As the promoter of Western-sponsored Jewish migration to Palestine

Ashley’s influence was likewise behind the establishment of a consulate in Jerusalem in 1838, also the creation of an Anglican bishopric there in 1841, and the appointment to it of a Jewish Christian bishop. On October 16, 1841, he wrote in his diary: “Where would the Sultan’s permission [to build the bishop’s church] has been without Palmerston’s vigour in consequence of my repeated and earnest representations. (Hodder, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 377 (cf. pp. 370, 374). See also Harold Temperley, England and the Near East: The Crimea (1936), p. 443, note 275; Barbara W. Tuchman, Bible and Sword (1956, 1968), chap. 10.)

But Ashley’s dream of a British-sponsored and treaty-protected Jewish migration to Palestine did not materialize. The Four-Power Treaty of 1840 ignored the matter. Even the Jews themselves showed little interest; more than half a century passed before Zionism among the Jews arose.

Still, the large party of the protestant movement continued to hold fast to the belief they had on the Antichrist, and that it was actually the institution of the Papacy that was claiming to be God’s throne on earth. All the great Christian leaders in the US still upheld this belief and were struggling against the Jesuits infiltrating their institutions.

In 1909 started what would forever determine the evangelical view of the end time, and take it away from their original belief. Cyrus I. Scofield engaged in all these views, and they were gathered in the Scofield Reference Bible.  It was largely through the influence of Scofield’s notes that dispensationalism grew in influence among fundamentalist Christians in the United States. Scofield’s notes on the Book of Revelation are a major source for the various timetables, judgments, and plagues elaborated on by popular religious writers such as Hal Lindsey, Edgar C. Whisenant, and Tim LaHaye. Their writings have led to popular films such as Left Behind. In this ideology, the Christian churches had a new common enemy.
Someone once said: “Nothing unites humans like a common enemy”

The pope was no longer a threat, and slowly the hands between Protestant groups and the Papacy could meet. They were now Christian brothers or a Christian family.
The ideas that had been made up by Jesuits and planted became accepted as end-time facts, and many have been taught in this understanding from early on.
The papacy had successfully reversed the protestant movement enough for them to no longer be threatened by them. 

The fight for a Jewish state or to get Jews to go to Palestine continued. If this didn’t happen, the theory would eventually be rejected. Did it happen, though, they would all see it as evidence that their interpretation was true, and even more would believe it. Maybe even God’s Christian commandment-keeping people would give up and follow.

The Ottoman stronghold had been weakened and Jerusalem was now under the control of the British mandate, a Christian protestant nation.

It was not until after the Second World War and the intense persecution of Jews by Nazi Germany that a larger party of the remaining Jews was motivated to move to Palestine. The sympathy in the aftermath also leads to acceptance and help.

Through the German Socialist Party and Hitler, millions of Jews were treated like animals, starved, tortured, experimented on, and lastly killed. When the truth came out, the world was abhorred. Even among the worst Jew-haters, heads were bowed in shame. It didn’t take long before the United Nations was founded, and they decided to give a portion of Palestine back to the Jews. Although the threat against them was removed and the need to move wasn’t really there if they could be restored and honored in their European countries, it was decided they were to be given Palestine instead. After the traumatic experience during World War, many Jews were happy to move back, trying to make a life for themselves away from the cruel hatred they had suffered. Many were running as fast as they could. After all, what had happened in Europe could happen again? The Jews had their common potential enemy: everyone else. Now they would make their fortress in the land that they once were driven from.
However, they weren’t given Jerusalem. What the Jews didn’t know was that they had just gone into another trap.

The Jews were now attacked by the Islamic countries who for long had controlled the temple mount in Jerusalem where the Jewish temple once stood. God had let the Islamic people protect the mount from the building of a new temple. Although God allowed the Jews to fight off their enemies, He did not allow them to take over the temple mount. Although coming to the mount during the war, they were quickly told to leave it a Muslim religious site by their own leaders. Many were distressed and didn’t understand the order. But it was given all the same. God let their decision be their rescue. Had they tried to rebuild the temple, God would have had to stop them.

The lie behind the doctrine

A large part of the reason the Jewish nation rejected Christ as their Messiah when he came was because they had a hope, awakened by scripture, of becoming a great nation in the world. The Messiah would come and deliver them and rule from Jerusalem. They would become the chosen people before the earth and be granted high positions.

When Jesus came, he showed no intention of fighting the Roman Empire or taking control of the political world. This did not seem consistent with the prophecy about the Messiah, and so they did not want him to be their long-awaited Messiah, and so they rejected him,

For them, the Messiah is a religious-political figure.

God, however, had tried to explain to them over and over again through their history that He cannot make an earthly kingdom if it is not on His terms and principles.

When they rejected Him in the past, God withdrew, and they were subdued by their enemies. When they cried for God to help them, He sent them judges, kings, and leaders to help them regain their independence once more. In the end, they were taken to Babylon. God’s throne and the Ark were hidden, and the temple was destroyed. Not because God was not stronger than Babylon, but because God would not be king in their midst if they did not represent Him right.

Around the time a more faithful remnant was to return to Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity, God gave Daniel an important message “to his people” regarding them and the future of Jerusalem, “thy holy city”.

God said He would give them, as a people and as a city, 70 prophetic weeks, which translates to 490 years to do one important thing to ensure their future in the land.

“Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy” (Dan.9:24)

Further, the angel explains that the Messiah would come during the last seven years, be killed in the middle of these seven years, and then their probation time would be over about 3,5 years after this. The time period is easily counted down to Christ’s first coming.

The time reflected the message Jesus gave to the Jews during the first 3.5 years of teaching them. Jesus would not first take the land, throw out Rome, and then try to convert them.

Instead, Christ told them that they needed to stop the rebellion, to become

a better representation, to allow themselves to be instructed and corrected, to end their sins and receive the atonement, that He would give them.

If they did according to the conditions and time granted them, their nation would most likely have been restored. But because Christ would not rule among them unless they changed their ways, Christ had to ask them to change their ways first.

The lie told Jews then, and told Jews now, is that the kingdom of Messiah starts politically and a conversion follows. This has never been God’s way. He would not even let them enter the promised land until they first made a covenant with Him. When they broke this covenant, He refused to let them enter until all the rebels among them had passed away. Then, when the new generation chose Him, only then were they allowed to enter the land. Even Moses was denied entering the land when he had sinned. God’s conditions are ever the same. This is why Jerusalem could only remain and be saved if they first accepted Christ. God’s kingdom among man never starts politically, it always starts spiritually.

Jesus said: “And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: 

Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” ( Luk 17:20-21)  

That is not the answer they wanted because they thought they were already righteous. However, the constant debate between Christ and the leaders showed that they did not represent the law and God correctly. They were not sanctified to the truth they proclaimed. 

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. 

Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. 

Even so, ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity” (Mat 23:25-28). 

God will not make a kingdom based on force or with a mob of hypocrites. That is why Jesus had to WIN THEM OVER, WIN THEIR HEARTS, to make a kingdom among them. When they rejected this, they also rejected the kingdom promised to them. The Kingdom starts within and then manifests on the outside, while the Jewish nation did not see a problem on the inside and wanted a kingdom to start on the outside and force the inside. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them”

“Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not” (Luk 11:44 & Matt.23:2-3) 

Christ warned against the danger of a hypocritical religion and how the heart and the goodness of God’s standard were destroyed in their representation.

Christ had to reach their hearts to reinstate Jerusalem as the capital of God. But they refused Christ’s righteousness, they threw away his teachings, and they killed their king.

As Pilate wrote above the cross of Christ it was: “And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin. Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written I have written” (Joh 19:19-22). 

Now how could God reinstate Jerusalem as a great nation, and give them independence, when they refused to be led by Him, even casting Him away as they did?

When they had to choose between the only one who could give them political independence and suppression, they would rather be suppressed by the Roman leader than be in a kingdom run by Christ: “But they cried out, Away with him,away with him,crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar” (Joh 19:15)

There they sealed their destiny, they had left “their house desolate” and God could not do a kingdom with them anymore. They did not want to, they did not receive Him, and they would not agree to God’s terms. The 70 prophetic weeks finally ended, not with Christ’s death, but when they started the “scattering” of God’s faithful people and preventing “the holy city” from being a city proclaiming the truth from that time on. They did it to themselves, they chose this. Christ was killed in the middle of the last prophetic week of the 70 weeks, and the end of it was the stoning of Stephen and the scattering of Christ’s followers from Jerusalem (Acts.8:1). 

The lie today is that the prophecy of the kingdom of the Messiah among the Jews is to be fulfilled in the end times after all. The very same doctrine that made them bewildered in the past, has resurfaced. The Jews are still waiting for their Messiah, a political figure, to give them power. They still will not receive Christ’s righteousness or accept they need this to be part of such a kingdom.

Because of the unfaithfulness of Judah, Christ had to change plans. Instead of Jerusalem being the center of His reign on earth, Christ had to give it up: “Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice” ( Joh 18:36-37). 

There was a time when a group of Jews wanted to crown him king. After he had fed the 5000, they wanted to make Him king and by it start the political rebellion against Herod and the Roman empire:

“When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone” (Joh 6:15)

Jesus refused because He could not, would not, start a political armed revolt at this time. Just like the Lord could not in the past give His unfaithful people victory in wars, neither could He now. They had to receive His righteousness. 

The very day after their attempt to announce Him king, they went looking for him again, and he tried to speak to them about what was important for their restoration.

“Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. 

He then went on and explained to them, that they had to: “eat his flesh and drink his blood” a symbol of letting Him change them, take away their sins, and atone for them. They needed to learn from Him and His example. “ (Joh 6:26 ;  Joh 6:41) 
The Jews then murmured at him because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. 

They did not like Jesus speaking about their spiritual needs when they wanted to have their physical and political needs covered. “Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?” “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.” ( Joh 6:60 & 66)
This situation proves very well how those who wanted to make Christ a king did not even respect Him if He did not do the works they wanted Him to do.

They did not want a spiritual baptism. This made it impossible for God to restore His king in the land after the 70 weeks.

Right before Christ spoke the words “your house is left unto you desolate” he gave a parable where he discussed a powerful man inviting specially chosen people to his wedding feast. But the invited declined the great offer, and he had to call upon those who were not originally invited instead:

“And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come. But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise: And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them. Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage” (Mat 22:3-9). 

The evangelical lie

Because the prophecy of Daniel 9 shows perfectly that the probation of the Jews as God’s capital from Jerusalem is over, and they did not meet their criteria, the teachers decided that this prophecy had to be divided and the last week, the last 7 years, should be “cut off” from the 70 weeks and placed in the end times. In this way, they create a “gap” between the 69 weeks and the final week and within this gap, the Jews are scattered and in the final week they get to fulfill the requirements and succeed after all. They move the last prophetic week of the Jews’ probation in Jerusalem to the end.

There is nothing in the time prophecy that indicates whatsoever that the 70 weeks time can be separated by a two thousand-year-long gap. Rather, it is presented in the Bible as one prophecy with different waymarks.

By cutting up the prophecy and moving the last week (7 years) to the end, they now can claim that the last verses speak of an antichrist and thus make it fit with the previous teaching.

This is all an error and a belief that was strengthened when Jews made their return to the land.

The expectation of these 7 years is greater than ever, and the Jewish return is considered a confirmation that this theory is true.

Unfortunately, it has also led to the belief of Christians being spared of the great end-time conflicts. The book of Revelation, most of it, is rejected to be about the Christians, and instead, they claim it is speaking about what the Jews have to go through. The mark of the beast, the plagues, and the woman riding the beast, are all placed upon the trials the Jewish nation will face. Many Christians are unprepared failing to see that this is a warning given to them especially, and is even speaking of them, the false Christian movements. Making them a sitting duck to the “beast and the false prophets” end-time deceptions, not realizing it is speaking about their leaders fooling them. Even worse, by rejecting the book of Revelation to be relevant to them, they fulfilled the prophecy of the false prophet mentioned there.

The book of Revelation is “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass” (Rev.1:1) It was given as a warning to Christ’s followers to understand events connected to them.

The important thing to realize is that what were Christ’s principles before are still His principles now. He will not lead a Jewish nation that hates His character and teaching. It won’t happen. Christ’s righteousness is witnessed in scripture, a book most Jewish scholars reject still. The conditions are the same. They were given a time, and that time is long over. Now, because they rejected their Messiah, His kingdom is not of this world. The New Jerusalem is built in heaven not on earth, for His faithful, and will be placed on earth when all have been judged. There are no new chances to choose an earthly kingdom of God before the judgment. The Jewish desire will not happen. 

Article series: INTRODUCTION – WHO IS JEHOVAH? – WHO IS THE REAL ISRAEL – THE SCATTERING – THE GATHERING: ONE-FOLD – ONE ISRAELTHE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL NOT CHOSEN – DANIEL 9 AND THE PRE-TRIBULATION DECEPTION – JUDAISM ACE IS NOT A GODLY REPRESENTATION OF OT – THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL – THE DIFFERENCE (between Biblical Israel taking of Canaan and modern Israel taking of Palestine)

The Jewish division in the first century

Around the time Jesus came to preach the law, there were two other great Jewish directions of faith.

Two great Jewish rabbis. One was called Shammai and the other was Hillel. Known now as Beit Shammai (Shammais house) and Beit Hillel (Hillels house). The two groups following their teachings disagreed on hundreds of points. Hillel died around the year 20 ACE and Shammai took over as president.

Hillel was the grandfather of Gamaliel, the one mentioned in the Bible and with whom Paul had attended the school (Acts.22:3). Shammai was a leading man around the time the rabbis and scribes rejected Christ, and because of the influence of these two great rabbis, it is clear that it is these men’s teachings Christ is debating in the gospels. They also started a new era of Judaism. Especially, Shammai especially sold the idea that there are two Torahs, one written in scripture and one given verbally. The verbal “Torah” gave them the opportunity to add as many things as they wanted, of explanations and practices, that were not in the Bible and call it “words from God”.
Christ debated these groups of his day, and the Jewish people were already at a way mark at that time. One way or another, Judaism would not remain as it had been because of these divisions and new ideas. With the coming of the oral Torah, it could only head in two directions. The Judaism of Christ or the different directions of Judaism by these rabbis.

According to the New Testament, Jesus is the oral Torah. He is the law that became flesh, the word of God manifested. When Jesus explained the law and how to uphold it, He was the oral Torah. He was teaching how the written Torah was to be practiced and manifested. The competing oral Torah from the rabbis was therefore an anti-oral Torah. Another “antichrist”. Another thing competing and claiming to be truth against the real truth.
In one way, Christ was forced to make his entry at this point in history because if he had not, the Jewish nation would be led in a direction God could not go with them. The direction of the false oral Torah. He was their last hope to keep their religion clean from false teachings.
John wrote about Jesus: “He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (Joh 1:11-13)

Here is stated that those who received Christ and His teachings would be given the “power to become the sons of God”. Those who chose the other teachers, the oral Judaism, would be rejected as children.

Jesus said: “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.” (Joh 3:19)

The Jews rejecting Christ continued the new Judaism inspired by rabbis instead of Christ. The oral Torah was accepted as the guide to God. These ideas and work are the inspiration for Judaism as it continues and as it is manifested today. Around 500 years after Christ, the oral traditions on how to interpret Scripture and God’s law were written down and called The Talmud. One was written in Jerusalem (Talmud Yerushalmi ) and the other in Babylon (Talmud Bavli). The Talmud consists of two main parts. The Mishna and the Gemara. The Mishna is said to be the oral Torah given to Moses and only preserved orally until written down in the Talmud. The book is written by rabbis, preserving their traditional interpretations as divine of origin. The Judaism we know today, even those not using this book, has over many generations inspired each other and each of the other understandings of scripture.

This Judaism was a rejection and an alternative to Christ’s rabbinical oral teaching. The Jewish alternative is a rejection of Christ’s righteousness. To the Jewish oral laws, Jesus said: “But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Mat 15:9).
Therefore, many problems will come when Christians now think that modern Judaism is harmonizing with Christ’s Judaism. Ultimately, going to learn from a Jew today could unfortunately also mean a learning of the doctrines and understandings Christ spoke against, and replacing Christ’s righteousness with the righteousness of His contenders, even His killers, that of the Pharisees and Scribes. No Christian should go from the righteousness of Christ to that of Hilal or Shammai. It is therefore critical Christians are aware of this before learning scriptures from modern Jews.

The gospel and letters in the New Testament are the “oral understanding, oral explanation” of God’s Old Testament and law. The New Testament itself is the competition to the written Jewish Talmud. Christ is the oral law, the gospels are as close to a Christian “Talmud” as you can get.  Christ preached God’s law, and the law, prophets, and Christ together represent the truth. All other writings of the New Testament are either complementing this or written to help resolve issues within the churches. Anyone after Christ can not present new laws or do away with God’s laws. Only God has the authority, and He says He can not.

The Hebrew language is not needed to understand the Bible. The spirit is.

It has become popular in our time, especially after the birth of the modern state of “Israel” to say Christians need to learn how to understand the Bible from Jews. This was God’s initial plan if they had received Christ and His teachings, to be the center of learning for all nations. They would have had this elevated position of sharing and mediating God’s truth to the world.
Now Christians are reaching out to learn how to understand scripture from those who have for hundreds and hundreds of years twisted scriptures against Christ’s righteousness. Many Christians believe that modern Jews and the modern state of Israel are the center of learning after God’s original plan, when they, in fact, failed and were rejected. We see Christians ignorantly learning at the feet of “Hillal” and other Talmudic rabbis. Satan can deceive best when he goes as close to the truth as possible, having the misguided Jewish congregation act as if they never lost their position, and using the scriptures about them as if they had been faithful and preserved the truth is so confusing that most buy into it.
Multitudes are turning to rabbis and Hebrew teachers to get a more in-depth understanding of scripture. Many Jews converted to Christianity recently uphold this view and claim they are, after “months” as Christians, better acquainted with teaching men the bible than even a generational Christian. On conversion, they uphold their Jewish superiority over other Christians regardless of the state of their conversion and amount of knowledge.

In one way it has elements of truth, in another way, it can lead to deception. Many modern Jewish converts are very influenced by the doctrines of the churches that converted them and mix this with traditional rabbinical thinking. This mixture can become unfortunate in understanding the Old Testament correctly. They use their Jewish heritage as God’s approval of their doctrines, and few dare say anything against them. It is a way to “whitewash” false Christian doctrines through a Jew.
If there were only one way to understand truth if everyone read Hebrew, naturally all who speak Hebrew would have the same understanding. Which they do not. Within Judaism and Hebrew messianic movements, the understanding of truth differs despite being able to read the Bible in Hebrew. It is not the Hebrew language that reveals the truth, it is the Holy Spirit. When man dismisses the Holy Spirit, their thoughts and ideas are added to God’s original meaning, and it becomes distorted no matter the language. People have blind spots, no matter the language. Our brain shuts away what we do not desire to be true, no matter the language.

Jesus revealed this when he spoke to the most learned Hebrew-speaking biblical scholars in his day and said to them: “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life” (Joh 5:39-40).

They saw the eternal life in there, but they could, for the life of them, not see the condition for this eternal life, Christ. Still today Jews memorize the scripture and know them all by heart, yet still can’t see Christ in them. They still don’t understand what they read or what God really wants. God does not want sacrifice (rituals, hypocrisy, visual stunts), he wants mercy (Matt.9:13) Or as Jesus said: “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” (Joh.7:24)

All of Christ’s debates with the Pharisees and scribes were on how to interpret the Bible. It is said Jesus spoke Aramaic, but he most likely did also speak Hebrew. The Pharisees and scribes spent years studying the scriptures in their original language, Jesus said they distorted it and misunderstood the meaning and even what God wanted to tell through them. Their error was so great that they could not even see that the “fulfillment of the law and the prophet” was standing right in front of him. They were so wrong about God’s law that they viewed Christ, who was in perfect harmony with that law, as a law-breaker, and themselves, who Christ claimed broke it, as law-keepers.
“Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God” (Mat_22:29)

Although they claimed to be true to Moses and the biblical teaching, Christ said about them the opposite: “And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead” (Luk_16:31).

They read Moses every day, and they still do. Yet, they are not understanding what they read correctly because they have pushed away the interpreter, the Holy Spirit. Jesus warned His followers: “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees” (Matt.16:6) Here Christ explains that their interpretations are like leaven in the bread. It spreads and affects everything, even that which is good.

The Hebrew language therefore cannot bring someone to the truth, it is as weak of a language as any other. Only the language of the Spirit can translate scriptures to the heart. Only an upright heart can see the truth when they read the words of truth.

Although the disciples had gone to the synagogue and learned from the Jews most of their lives, Christ had to unteach most of what they had learned and re-teach them so they would understand things in the right light.

“And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. …Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures” ( Luk_24:27  and 45)

The oral traditions of the rabbis were written down. The word “Talmud” means “learning”, yet it was Christ who was supposed to be the “Talmud” for understanding the law, rituals, and prophets. Jews who rejected Christ rejected his learning and took that of the Pharisees and scribes.

Although not followed by all Jews systematically, the ideas behind much of the Talmud are now part of what constitutes modern Judaism and how they understand scripture, their rituals, and their history.

For Christians, going to learn from Jews how to understand the Old Testament is therefore highly problematic and can be at best a deception that leads away from God’s intended meaning. A leaven is a small dough representing error mixed into a greater dough representing truth. Rabbinical Judaism does have plenty of good teachings, but their errors lead away from Christ’s righteousness.

Who would have predicted that Christ’s followers would one day go and sit by the foot of those continuing the ideas of the ones Christ openly rebuked for being unlearned?

Yet, it has happened because the birth of the modern state of Israel has made many believe they are God’s chosen again, and therefore they must have the truth.

After Christ came, Judaism split into two groups. One followed the disciples who had learned how to interpret the scriptures rightly after God’s will, the other groups were those who followed the Pharisees and scribes. The ones who were chosen to uphold the truth and were chosen were the group that followed Christ’s interpretation. Thus, the Christian direction, while it was undefiled, had the oral truth of the scriptures and the Jews the corrupted version and understanding.

God continues to tell His people that God does not reveal the truth through one language. During Pentecost, there were people of all different nations gathered in Jerusalem. When the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples after the Old Testament, God revealed three important things.

The continuation of the blessings to Israel was only to be fulfilled upon the faithful. As prophesied: “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit” ( Joe 2:28-29)

Peter confirmed that this was fulfilled and spoke of the Christian-Jewish movement. (Act 2:16)

The second was that the Holy Spirit, instead of letting all those people understand Hebrew, revealed the truth in their own different languages: “And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God” (Act 2:8-11). 

Thus, the truth of God can be understood perfectly in any language as long as the Spirit interprets it. Likewise, as Christ showed, speaking Hebrew did not necessarily mean you could interpret the scripture correctly. It was God who had created a lot of the foundation languages: “Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech” (Gen 11:7) God is not just revealed in one language.

During Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks, God did the opposite of what He did in Babel and allowed anyone to understand the words spoken.

From all of this, we can understand that a Christian does not need to go to a Jew to rightly understand the Bible, in fact, often, they will be confused about its real meaning. They have to go to God or to those people who have continued the faith of the apostles. That is not modern messianic Jews if they are inspired by false Jewish understanding mixed with the understanding from the apostate churches that evangelized to them. Now that evangelicals have adopted in large part the false Jewish understanding about the coming of the Messiah, many messianic Jews feel at home with these teachings, while in reality, they need to hear the truth. Some messianic do have the truth more than some Christian churches, but it is not a fast rule that truth is always found with the claimed Jew-by-flesh. It is not a fast rule that the moment a Jew converts, he becomes superior in teaching to every other Christian.

Right understanding is found where the line of faithful has continued for generations, proven to have the spirit of prophecy and the blessings of God, along with respect for God’s law and Christ’s gospel. Where God’s law is upheld as Christ directed it to be held.

The Book of Revelation describes God’s remnant of Israel in this way: “And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev.12:17)
Again, we can revisit Revelation 12 where we see a woman who gave birth to Christ, representing the true Israel of God, and how it was scattered from Israel and had to run in hiding, persecuted. The story of the church is told multiple times in multiple ways in Revelation, and we see an experience of trials and deliverance that has brought the assembly in close relation with Christ. Through these experiences, God’s people have been sanctified and disciplined, just like Jacob was, they are walking with a limp symbolically speaking. They understand God better than often many who have gone from erroneous Jewish understanding to charismatic Christian views, without being able to properly distinguish errors from truth. God has always had a people representing him, a “kingdom of priests”. 

Christians who have misunderstood scriptures resemble in many ways the understanding and teachings of those Jews who have misunderstood, which makes it fairly easy to go from one error to the other.

If the real group of God’s people whom God has worked through by Spirit and prophets are ignored, important corrections to misunderstandings are not made. Warnings that false teachings entered the churches are not heeded. Who the end time “bad guys” is not understood.

Many Christians seek the truth from messianic Jews who are not mature in Christ enough to lead the way. They do not have the experience and background yet to lead. Yet, they are chosen as guides because of their ancestral DNA only. Still, there are exceptions, and God calls out leaders where he pleases after His own judgment. God’s men are also among the messianic community.

Unconverted Jews do not represent Moses and the prophets.

Modern Judaism, even the most dominant in the time of Christ, misunderstands Moses and Abraham, even their ancestors. Jesus clarified that Moses and Abraham were more like Him and loved who He was and is. They knew each other: “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am” ( Joh 8:56-58)

Many Jews thought they were like Abraham or followed in his footsteps just because they were descendants of him and had words describing his life and relation with God in their hands. But Jesus told them that one thing does not necessarily mean the other: “They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham” (Joh 8:39). 

When Jesus was on the mount of Transfiguration, both Elijah and Moses came to encourage Him. (Matt.8:4) Jesus knew Moses very well. Jesus said: “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.” (Joh_5:46)

In all this, we learn that Moses and the forefathers were more like in practice and understanding of what Christ was representing than the Jews of his day. Since Christ’s day, Jews have rejected the Spirit speaking the truth and have over two thousand years had time to freeze and even advance their misunderstandings and are in as bad a state now as then, if not even more.

If they no longer, by rejecting Christ’s interpretation of the Old Testament, represent either Moses and their forefathers, they can no longer teach people how to understand the same correctly. Thus, they are not law teachers anymore. For they will teach us a Moses and an Abraham, a David, an Elijah, and Elisha that is different than they actually were. They had Christ’s righteousness, the same the Jews reject. They will teach people that they are Jews in the same way as they are, which is a lie. Many of those who were true to Christ, like the Old Testament of the prophets, were killed in their day. Isaiah was sown in two by his own people. Jeremiah put in stocks. 

Jesus said to them: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation” ( Mat 23:29-36)

By this, Jesus shows us how they ended up so far away from the truth, despite having the scripture to guide them. It had always been a split where one part had misinterpreted God to their damnation and one part had tried to silence those who spoke the truth. Even Moses, they tried to stone in his day.

If those who saw and interacted with Moses themselves, who saw the sea part in front of them, who heard God’s voice speak the law, a greater manifestation than those who just read about Moses and the law, still were able to reject the truth of it in their day, it is even more possible for Jews to do it in Christ day and in ours. 

Had Jesus come today among them, he might have been stoned the first month, let alone after three and a half years. That is, unless it is someone imitating Christ speaking what they want to hear, then they would receive him as Christ said: “I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive” (Joh 5:43). 

Satan will even have people come and say they are the anointed and the Messiah. Satan knows they will receive a false Christ if he is pleasing to them: “And Jesus answering them began to say, Take heed lest any man deceive you: For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” ( Mar 13:5-6). 

This is just what happened to the Jewish congregation when they received a false messiah, which ultimately led to the rebellion against Rome and the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. They had received Christ if he had rebelled and said he would free them from Rome. But Christ said he came to free them from their sins; thus he was rejected. He did not flatter them or elevate the false teachers but called them out on their fanaticism and bad behavior. Rather, admiring their studies and degrees, he called them out. Yet when someone came and flattered them, favored and supported their errors, and claimed God wanted them to be delivered from Rome and that He would go with them when they rebelled, they received him gladly.

The Jewish sanctuary and feasts

God took from the Jews the sanctuary and with them its feasts that could only be fulfilled with a sanctuary. By it, God did not just take away from them the priestly service, the feasts no longer were theirs. This is something they would hold on to anyway. The Jews did the same at the border to the promised land. When God told them to take the land, they refused. When God told them they were to return to the wilderness, they did the opposite again and tried to conquer the land without His blessing. Likewise, when Israel had their independence, they would not keep God’s feasts and sabbath and instead followed the practices of the surrounding pagans. When they rejected Christ, they continued to keep the feasts and sabbath as if they had done nothing wrong. This is Satan’s constant tactic to keep people in rebellion. He also did it with the Christians. When the Christians were faithful he persecuted them, when they were apostates, he needed them to keep their traditions from the Bible so they could confuse the truth. The same he did with the Jews. First, he wanted them to rebel against God and was happy with that. But when they crucified their King, Satan wanted them to appear pious and apparently harmonize with God’s standard. What Satan fears is when we obey God and practice His truth together. As long as a lethal lie is in the religion, he lets us keep the religion, as it cannot save us and will confuse everyone else. Either Satan wants us to reject God or He wants us to misrepresent him and cause confusion. Which one we do is the same to him. The biblical command was that three times a year Israel was to assembly by the Tabernacle during the appointed feasts. 

“Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year. Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:) And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field. Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD” (Exo 23:14-17). 

Among the requirements to keep these feasts was to be met before the tabernacle with its appointed sacrifices, as well as a tithe from the harvest. To keep it, there must be a tabernacle, and there must be a sacrifice. After the Jews lost the temple, God therefore also took from them the blessings of the feasts. They cannot meet the requirements God has set to keep them.

The second requirement is for the tithe to go to His house, His house after Christ is Christ. He is “the temple” and His people are both the “temple” and “the priests”.

“Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body” (Joh 2:19)

About Christ’s followers it is said; that He “hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father” (Rev.1:6)

This means the tithe is to go to Christ, the high priest, and His workers as they are the new priests.

After Christ died, there were to be no more animal sacrifices, at least no animal sacrifices would be accepted. “And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease” (Dan 9:27) 

Therefore, the only way to keep the feasts after Christ’s death is through His sacrifice.

It is therefore impossible to keep the feasts or receive the blessings of the feasts without the Heavenly sanctuary present and approached. Without Christ’s sacrifice being at the center of the feasts, there is no true feastkeeping.

Because Christ made the other sacrifices to cease, the now-kept Jewish Passover is in violation of the order of Christ if replaced with a sacrificial lamb.

The Passover was a prophetic feast pointing to Christ’s coming, death, and resurrection. The Passover lamb symbolizes Christ. Egypt symbolized the kingdom of death, and leaving it symbolized life in Christ. All of Israel had to put the blood of the lamb on their doorpost to be spared of the coming judgment.
This symbolizes that those of Israel, who have not accepted Christ’s blood for their sake, are under God’s judgment. Their feast is illegal, for it is not kept after God’s order.
Every year Jews continue to prick with a fork in their unleavened bread. This has now become a symbol of how their continued rejection and crucifixion of Christ: “And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.”

(Zec.12:10) Each serving is eaten in rejection, each hole a repetition of the holes created on Christ’s afflicted body from the nail marks on his hands and feet to holes from the crown of thorns, to the hole in his side where the blood and the water came out. Every time they eat the poked unleavened bread at easter in rejection of Christ as that which the symbol points, they uphold their resistance.

Their sacrifices are illegal.

The Jews have successfully, after scattering God’s people, given the world the illusion that the Passover is theirs and are Jewish and unconnected to Christ. The truth is that Passover belongs to Christ. It is His feast. He is the high priest, he is the lamb, and He has the sanctuary. He is the temple. Without Christ, Passover is a lie and the breaking of the law.

All the feasts given to Israel belong to Christ. They are a testimony of His sacrifice and priestly service. It is the plan of salvation laid out. When the Jews rejected Christ, they stole these feasts from whom the feasts were all about and by it misrepresented God and His laws. The feasts were meant to follow the remnant of Israel, Christ’s followers, as they followed Christ into the sanctuary in heaven. Rather the Jews reject Christ being a witness to the world, they deceive the world by saying the traditions are theirs and Christians are not allowed to take part because Christ has no part in it. Christians are fooled into believing these lies and end up rejecting God’s celebration of Christ’s priesthood in the belief that it has nothing to do with Christ and that it belongs only to Jews.

The Jews did this very early on, so early on that Paul had to address the deception.

In Colossians, he addresses how those who are not circumcised have been told they cannot take part in the sabbaths and moon days, they have been told they cannot eat or touch what the Jews claim are holy and only for them. Paul then argues that they are indeed holy through Christ, that His death for them and the cleansing of their sins are a greater “cleanse” than circumcision can be. That one is superior to the other, and by the circumcision of the heart through Christ they are allowed to take part in what is actually about Christ in the first place. “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; … Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ” (Col 2:13, 16-17) . 

These verses have often been twisted around and used as an excuse for Christians to break these same things, or even to break the Sabbath. However, the meaning is understood because Paul first speaks about circumcision, and we know Jews would not let anyone take part in their worship and Passover if they were not circumcised. The only reason Paul would reassure them they were good enough was to encourage them to take part in the feasts, the sabbaths, and even the feast meals as if they were equal through Christ. The argument is that these things are a “shadow of things to come” and that all of it “is of Christ”. It’s his body. It represents his sacrifice, it represents his priestly service. It represents Christ’s first and second coming. A greater qualifier is, therefore, taking part in Christ, not a circumcision that does not say much about where the heart is.

In the past, circumcision was an important symbol of giving God their body and heart, their obedience. But when they kept the circumcision but rebelled against God, the symbol had no effect as a qualifier anymore.

“For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law? For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: 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” (Rom 2:25-29) 

The famous verses of Paul that many Christians claim mean they do not have to keep God’s law, feasts, and sabbath anymore are actually Paul saying they are qualified to keep them. Even more qualified than the circumcised. 

The newly converted pagan Christians were discriminated against, and it was to such a degree that they misunderstood what belonged to Christ, and they instead went back to pagan feasts and traditions and even Christianized them to win the pagans over. Paul warned them strongly about thinking they had no part in God’s culture because they were not of Jewish heritage. These ideas were planted by Jews rejecting Christ, trying to separate the prophecies pointing to Christ from Christ. As a consequence converted Jews upheld these errors as Christians.
Paul tried hard to hold together what the others tried to pull apart: “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Gal.3:26-29)

He argues that they too, although uncircumcised and of pagan origin, are now through Christ Abraham’s seed. They are grafted in and part of Israel. And therefore the promises are theirs, not just the Jews.  Unfortunately, the rejection from the Jews led newly converted pagans to think they had to continue their pagan culture instead and keep culture separate from faith. Paul warns them against such folly:

“Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain” ( Gal 4:8 -11). 

By the false gospel, this has been turned around to give the opposite meaning. Christians now use this as evidence that they are not to observe the sabbath and feasts ordained by God. But Paul is clear, he speaks about the feasts and seasons they kept “when ye knew not God” and while they followed those who “are no gods”. And that going back to the traditions of the pagans, they go back into bondage.

They can be the promised seed, part of the culture of God. Yet are chased away by Jews of the flesh from taking part, told they cannot take part, and therefore are returning to their pagan culture. This happened because the God given culture was separated from faith. This way, Jews could monopolize their culture without Christ and pagans could keep their culture with Christ. Both are a deception. Paul warned against separating God’s culture from Christ.

The pagans were to be “crafted in” and become part of Israel. The new branches, converted pagans, took their place, while the unfaithful Jews of the flesh were rejected. “Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear” (Rom 11:20)

The feasts were given by God as a witness of Christ to His faithful. The feasts and the sabbath can only be kept through Christ. Jews who continue these traditions while rejecting Christ are not only keeping an empty shell of religious practice, but they are also witnessing falsely. They are preventing Christians from taking part in Christ’s culture by fooling them into believing that these things belong to the Jews of flesh rather than the Jews of faith, which can be both gentile and Jews. On Passover, only those who cover themselves in Christ’s blood, are blessed. On the Feast of weeks, only those who cover themselves in Christ’s blood are gifted the Spirit. On the Feast of Trumpets, only those who cover themselves in Christ’s blood are warned and given to prepare for the coming judgment. On Yom Kippur, only those who cover themselves in Christ’s blood, are represented by the High Priest. On The Feast of Tabernacles, only those who have covered themselves in Christ’s blood will be harvested by Christ to the new Jerusalem. There is no blessing in any of the Jewish feasts without Christ. The blessings of the feast follow Christ’s followers. They are the ones who can rightly explain them and keep them. Unfortunately, because the Jews scattered the faithful from Jerusalem and claimed the feasts were desecrated by those who believed in Christ, they succeeded in both getting Christians to reject God’s culture and making themselves appear as the guardians of it still. 

The feasts were meant to prophesy the plan of salvation, Christ’s priestly service, and he gave them to Israel to safeguard the truth spoken through symbolic language. “Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man. For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer. For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law: Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount” (Heb 8:1-5)

To rightly keep the feast now the believer cannot go to Jerusalem. As Jesus said: “Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father” (Joh 4:21) 

Rather, to keep it, we have to turn our hearts to the sanctuary in heaven. 

God gave the Jews the feasts that Yehovah called “my feasts” so that they could minister God’s truth and gospel to the world. They chose to refuse, and they stole the foundation God had built to share the gospel and claimed it had no part in Christ. They stole from Christ what belonged to Christ. When they did this, they robbed the temple of God and placed themselves under condemnation. And because they did this and confused the followers of Christ, the truth about Christ’s mission as a sacrifice and priest is lost to most Christians and even the world.

It is true that God told Israel in Egypt to keep the feast throughout all generations. However, God directed this command to them as a chosen people. The moment they left God, they were no longer chosen or “children”. As Jesus said, they were not sons of Abraham unless they did as Abraham did. It was God’s faithful remnant that was to keep it in all generations, not the unfaithful. When the “kingdom of priests” was moved from Israel by the flesh to the followers of Christ, they were to inherit (together with Christ) to safeguard God’s culture and to represent its meaning. To explain the exodus, Moses, the sanctuary, and the rituals. All of these became the office of the followers of Christ. To guard and explain the law and even the feasts.

When the Jews by flesh rejected Christ, they could no longer do this.

Although God told them to keep them in all generations, this was not to be if they were unfaithful. The feasts were taken from them when they were unfaithful. When they were disobedient during the 40 years in the wilderness, they were not permitted to keep them together with their opposition.

“Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward …When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood” ( Isa 1:2-4 & 12 -15).

So those Jewish hands full of blood ought not to keep it. Remember what they said: “When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it. Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children” (Mat 27:24-25)  

Not just Christ’s blood is put on them, but Christ also said: “That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation” (Mat 23:35-36). 

The Jews reject Christ, their feasts “My soul hateth” God says. So the Jews have since Christ Day discouraged the true hairs of God’s promises to keep them, and they have insisted on keeping them with blood on their hands. 

As we can see, God does not say they should keep the feast as holy law, regardless of what they do. Rather, he says it is in vain and is a provocation to God when it is done in rebellion. Rejecting Christ was a Jewish rebellion against God, thus their feasts and sabbath observance were unwanted.  

The lost tribes of Israel, who were the first to rebel against God and who were never allowed back into the land after the Babylonian captivity the following is said: “I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts” (Hos 2:11). 

It did not matter that they were descendants of Jacob, infidelity and holiness do not combine. What God said in Egypt no longer applied to them.

God addressed this once again to the prophet Haggai. He said: “Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Ask now the priests concerning the law, saying, If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No. Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean. Then answered Haggai, and said, So is this people, and so is this nation before me, saith the LORD; and so is every work of their hands; and that which they offer there is unclean” (Hag 2:11-14). 

Keeping God’s holy feasts and sabbaths does not make the Jews holy. Holiness does not transfer, uncleanness does. So when a rebellious Jew keeps God’s holy times, he defiles his observance instead of the observance sanctifying him.

God had said: “Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them. And he said: “And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the LORD your God” ( Eze_20:12 & 20:20)

This does not mean that someone becomes holy for keeping the Sabbath. The holiness of the sabbath is a seal on a faithful heart. But the sabbath itself cannot make anyone holy. The Sabbath is a sign of obedience, taking God’s commands seriously. But it is “the Lord that sanctifies” not the sabbath. When the sabbath is kept while the heart is in defiance, the sabbath becomes desecrated and the people keeping it do not become holy.

The point is further explained in Ezekiel when God says: “Notwithstanding the children rebelled against me: they walked not in my statutes, neither kept my judgments to do them, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; they polluted my sabbaths: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the wilderness” ( Eze_20:21 )

God’s sabbath became polluted. It was not just plainly broken.

God explains: “Moreover this they have done unto me: they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day, and have profaned my sabbaths. For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and, lo, thus have they done in the midst of mine house.” ( Eze 23:38-39)

So they came to God’s house on the sabbath, as required, yet they were ungodly and did evil, and thus their behavior polluted both God’s sanctuary and the Sabbath. This is the crime of Jews today as well. They blaspheme God and Christ while claiming to honor God. “Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the LORD” ( Jer 7:9-11). 

The great disillusion a Jew can have is to think they can reject Christ, the prophet and messiah, their Lord and their redemption, spit and mock him. Yet still come and thread God’s courts and sabbaths and not profane them.

Is it possible for a Jew to keep the sabbath without Christ?

The Bible is clear. It was Christ’s breath that gave life to the first man, Adam. He was the beginning of creation. The world was created by him. It was Christ that worked and rested upon the sabbath. Refusing to acknowledge their life-giver and lawgiver is doing the opposite of what the sabbath commandment asks. It required us to acknowledge Him who created man by resting upon the sabbath as a memorial of his work. Before they knew not that this commandment spoke of Christ, and they could therefore keep it in the name of Yehovah and respect Christ before His incarnation. But after Christ came and revealed Himself to them, they would desecrate the sabbath unless they received Him and gave Him glory, as “ the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath” ( Mar 2:28 ). 

” If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin” ( Joh 15:22 ).

It is Christ that sanctifies. As written in Ezekiel, “Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them.”

I am YEHOVAH, that sanctifies them. Jesus is Yehovah and He can only sanctify those who come to Him, and thus the sabbath blessing can only be given through sabbath observance in Christ, not outside of Christ.

The sabbath observance of the Jews that reject Christ is therefore not sanctifying them. Rather, it is kept in rebellion and not in obedience. The rightful guardians of the sabbath are, therefore, as with the feasts, the followers of Christ. The faithful Jewish remnant grafted together with the pagan converts to God’s culture and atonement.

The Jews are desecrating and misrepresenting God’s feasts and sabbath, portraying it as a right of the circumcised, not only of the circumcised, for that would include Muslims and many Christians with such traditions, but to those who reject Christ alone and accept their interpretation of these same times as symbol of the Jewish excellency as Gods chosen kingdom of priests, instead of Christ. It is an antichrist religion. It takes from the heir and gives it to the “husbandmen”: “But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him. When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen? They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.” ( Mat 21:37-41) 

Because of all of this, the Jewish-by-flesh is not the chosen advocate for God’s times. “Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows: for the wicked shall no more pass through thee; he is utterly cut off” ( Nah 1:15 ). 

Only through Christ, there is peace, the wicked are cut off, and the good tidings and the gospel come with Him. They who bear this message shall keep the solemn feasts and perform the vows.

The Sabbath and feasts belong to Christ

We see that Christ did not treat the feasts as if they belonged to those Jews who rejected him. He treated them as if they were his and those who followed him. Jesus died on Passover day, he rose on the feast of the first fruits. He asked them to wait and prepare for the Feast of Weeks and on that day, Shavuot, He poured out the Holy Spirit as promised to his people, on his holy day. He claims the feasts for himself and his followers.

Christ fulfilled the symbols of the law, told his people to keep them, and blessed them on the same day. But those Jews that also kept the feast, but without Christ, were not blessed. Only those who did it in Christ were. Christ then went to the sanctuary in heaven to minister on behalf of his people on earth.

There he will perform the work the priest did on Yom Kippur, on the Feast of Trumpets. On the feast prophesying his return, He will gather the fruit of His work, His people. Christ shows no inclination that these feasts and times belong to “the Jews” or “the past”. He fulfills them and continues to do so because it is His and His temple’s gathering. The others are the unfaithful “husbandmen” when they steal these things from Christ.

To His followers, He said: “But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day” ( Mat_24:20 ) Here again, Christ shows no understanding that His sabbath is to be taken from His followers. They are his and theirs.

Christ had kept the sabbath holy every week of his entire life, as recorded in scripture and by His words that he kept God’s law. In the Acts of the Apostles, we see Christ’s followers, Jews, and pagans alike, keep the sabbath at least over 80 times! (The Disciples Kept the Sabbath 85 Times in the book of Acts – EliYah Ministries) In addition, we see them respecting God’s feasts as well.

The rejection of the sabbath among Christians came later after “ravenous wolves” came “among them”, and was not part of the early church. “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.” (Act 20:28-31)  

Rome and the Jews, although enemies, ripped the culture of Christ from Christ. And placed Christ with idols, and the culture of Christ with those who rejected him. Both took part in destroying God’s truth by deceiving people into thinking Christ can be separated from His sabbath and law.

In return, the Jews who rejected Christ got traditions without God’s spirit and God. When they called, He would not hear.

And the pagan Roman Christians got the name of Christ without blessings and without understanding salvation correctly.

The winner of this was “the dragon” and he had left both parties with “a name” but without the One behind the name. The only ones to expose his lies and deceptions and those he could not control were those who continued to keep Christ and the law and the culture testifying of Christ together in tight unity. And because they kept Christ together with His law and culture, the devil was especially angry with them “And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev 12:15-17) 

They are the ones who represent Christ and the culture written about in the Bible correctly. They are the kingdom of priests, they understand Moses, Abraham, and Christ. Because they guard the truth in its right context, unlike pagan Christianity and Christless Judaism, they are especially attacked by both pagan Christians and Jews as well as by the dragon. They are surrounded by apostate religion on all sides.

Only by targeting them, can the dragon, or Satan, target God and the truth. If Satan desires to destroy the truth, he has to attack those who preserve it. The others have already been deceived to help Satan’s agenda of destroying man’s understanding of God and the plan of salvation.

Since Christ was murdered, Jews and Rome have cooperated in one thing, although being natural contenders, scattering God’s people and the truth. It was always a joint effort, from Pilate who did their bidding and crucified Christ until our day, as we will see as our study continues where this collaboration reaches its climax in the battle of Armageddon.