Article series: INTRODUCTION – WHO IS JEHOVAH? – WHO IS THE REAL ISRAEL – THE SCATTERING – THE GATHERING: ONE-FOLD – ONE ISRAEL : THE 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) – What side should we take in the Palestinian and Israeli conflict?

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 ISRAEL : THE 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) – What side should we take in the Palestinian and Israeli conflict?

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.